Gender Disparities in the Child Psychiatry Ranks

Child and adolescent psychiatry is among the top 5 medical specialties in the United States with greatest representation of women among active residents (62.5%) and of female physicians among currently practicing physicians (52.7%).^1,2 (Note that our use of "gender" (women or men) and "sex" (female or male) parallels use in the referenced publications. We recognize that gender and sex are not interchangeable.) Previous studies have found women faculty physicians to be disadvantaged in attaining higher salaries, National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding, promotion, and tenure-even in majority-women specialties.^3,4 Pediatrics, another specialty in which women predominate, has found a disproportionate number of women faculty in junior academic ranks.³ Furthermore, women remain a stark minority in senior-ranking leadership positions.⁵ To our knowledge, no previous publications have examined the proportion of women physicians at different faculty ranks in US academic child and adolescent psychiatry. In the summer of 2018, we began a search for a named/endowed professor position in child and adolescent psychiatry. Recognizing gender and racial disparities in recruitment, we conducted a comprehensive search for all child and adolescent psychiatry faculty members within the United States. We decided to use the collected data to investigate gender disparities among academic child and adolescent psychiatry physicians. We hypothesized that gender disparities would increase with child and adolescent psychiatry physicians' academic ranks, with greatest disparities among full professors. As separate points of inquiry, we explored gender distribution among division directors and named/endowed faculty.