Gender and parenting significantly affect work hours of recent dermatology program graduates

The increased proportion of female physicians over the last 30 years may have important implications for future physician workforce needs.

To assess the roles of gender, marital status, and parenting in employment choices.

Anonymous surveys were distributed to recent dermatology residency graduates taking a board examination review course from 1999 through 2002.

The number of hours respondents saw patients per week and the number of hours they spent in each field of dermatology per week.

There were 191 respondents to the survey in 2002, which represented 54% of the 2002 residency graduates. For clarity, this article focuses on the 2002 results except where trends over time become apparent. Of the respondents, 57% were women and 43% were men. Women saw patients a mean of 26 hours per week while men saw patients a mean of 31 hours (P =.01), although women spent more time practicing medical dermatology. Marital status did not significantly affect the number of work hours. Men and women who were not parents worked almost the same number of hours per week, but male parents saw patients a greater number of hours than female parents (34 vs 24; P<.01). Men who were parents spent more hours per week seeing patients than men who were not. In contrast, women who were parents spent fewer hours seeing patients than women who were not.Conclusion Parenting, in combination with gender, greatly influences workforce choices for professionals with young families while gender alone has little impact on those choices.