Examining pay gaps in family medicine

Pay Gaps in Canadian Medicine is a mixed-methods project funded by CIHR. DFM involvement is led by Drs. Meredith Vanstone, Monika Dutt, Danielle O’Toole with research assistance from Andrea Carruthers and Katrina Shen. The quantitative portion of this project (led by Dr. Arthur Sweetman, Department of Economics) uses data from the Canadian census, labour force survey, Canada Revenue Agency tax records, and a survey of Ontario family physicians sponsored by the OMA to describe and understand the existence of pay gaps related to gender, race, international training and immigration status. The qualitative portion, which is what Meredith, Monika, and Danielle are focused on, has interviewed 53 Ontario-based Family Physicians to better understand why and how the pay gaps observed in the quantitative data arise, are perpetuated, and may be remedied. This is a quantitative dominant convergent parallel project, which means that with our qualitative data we are investigating specific pay gaps identified quantitatively, using findings from the quant data to inform the way that we are sampling participants and designing our interview guide. As of July 2024, we have finished most of our data collection and have started on analysis. We may return to conduct a small number of additional interviews if we have gaps in our data as the analysis takes shape.