Gender-based income differences for physical therapist managers

The purpose of this study was to determine whether income differences associated with gender exist for therapists in management positions and whether such differences also exist for salaried and self-employed individuals after adjusting for differences due to hours worked, years worked full-time, leave taken from the profession, number of years at a facility, and number of years in a position.

The subjects were 969 physical therapists who held management positions throughout the United States.

Subjects responded to a survey designed for male and female administrators. Respondents were assigned to groups of salaried therapists or self-employed therapists, t tests were used to compare characteristics based on gender, and analysis of covariance was used to compare income based on gender after controlling for certain variables.

After adjusting for the set of five covariates, the data showed that self-employed female therapists earned 77% of the average salary earned by the self-employed male therapists. A similar analysis revealed that the salaried female managers earned 89% of the average salary earned by male managers. Within the five practice subgroups of salaried managers, salary differences existed only for those therapists working in acute care settings.

For the physical therapist managers who responded to the survey, there were gender-based salary differences. Regardless of whether the therapists were salaried or self-employed, salary differences existed for some areas of practice but did not appear to exist in other areas of practice.