Is There Gender Bias in Radiology Job Postings?

Words can convey subtle cultural stereotypes and perpetuate subconscious gender biases. Wording in job advertisements that appeals to 1 gender and deters others may unintentionally skew the applicant pool and affect the early phase of the recruitment process. "Masculine" tone can lead to decreased interest among women applicants while 'feminine' wording may not affect a man's decision to apply for the job. In this study, we evaluated the presence and extent of subtle gender bias in job advertisements for radiology faculty positions.

All job postings for faculty radiologists were retrieved from the American College of Radiology Career Center website in July 2020. The complete job advertisement was analyzed using Gender Decoder, a publicly available web-based application, to determine number and percentage of female or male coded words and the overall tone of the ad. The job posts were also stratified by subspecialty, leadership positions and academic versus private practice environments.

Of the 623 job postings reviewed, a little over half (52.0%) of job postings were feminine coded, 26.6% had a masculine tone and 21.3% had a neutral tone. Of the leadership (division director) positions, 50.0% (4/8) had a masculine tone, 37.5% had a feminine tone, and 12.5% had a neutral tone. Among various specialties, pediatric radiology had the lowest percentage of job posts with a masculine tone (10.5%) while nuclear medicine had the highest percentage (41.7%). The most commonly used feminine words were: "support," "responsible," "commitment" and the most common masculine words were: "competitive," "leader," "active."

Most of the imaging job advertisements were feminine coded, with masculine tone in overall 26.6% posts and neutral tone in about a fifth. Leadership posts had a higher percentage of masculine tone. Awareness of these biases is important to enable diversity in recruitment and to ensure a diverse applicant pool.