The glass ceiling persists: Women in health IT earn 20% less than their male counterparts

Health IT is a boys club and nothing reflects this more than the persistent pay gap between men and women in the field. HIMSS released its "Gender-Based IT Pay Inequity & the Impact of the Clinical IT Executive in the Health Sector" report, which highlights just how much pay inequality remains.

The survey found men in health IT earn an average salary of $126,000, while women's average compensation hovers around $101,000. But, when examining both nonexecutive and executive roles, the chasm widens. In the first year of employment, women in nonexecutive and nonsenior management roles earn 80 percent of what their male counterparts do. In executive and senior management roles, women earn 63 percent of what their male peers earn.

For female executives and senior managers, it takes 15 years or more to reach pay parity with the men in equivalent roles.

Unsurprisingly, the survey found more men than women inhabit senior and executive roles in health IT. Here is the breakdown for survey respondents:

Women
•    Nonexecutive and nonsenior management: 86.4 percent
•    Senior management: 10 percent
•    Executive management: 3.6 percent

Men
•    Nonexecutive and nonsenior management: 69.1 percent
•    Senior management: 19 percent
•    Executive management: 11.8 percent

The survey did find pay parity in one area. Women working in nonexecutive and nonsenior management roles at for-profit organizations reported equal compensation with their male peers.

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