A new study conducted by the AAPA and published this month in Women’s Health Issues has found that there is a glaring disparity between the salaries of male and female PAs. For every dollar a male PA earns, his female counterpart earns only 89 cents—though nearly 70% of all PAs are female.

“As a PA educator, I feel keenly the burden of student debt. One way to think about the impact of the gender pay gap is in the context of the $150,000 in student loans facing a typical PA upon graduation. A male PA earning $10,000 a year more than his female PA counterpart could use that extra money to pay off his student loan debt in 15 years. The disparate treatment of women in the PA profession is simply unacceptable,” L Gail Curtis, President and Chair of the AAPA Board of Directors, is quoted as saying.

While this 11% gap may be shocking to some, compensation disparities between males and females have persisted for decades, and despite years of progress in the fight against the gender wage gap, women continue to make less than their male counterparts for doing the same work in nearly all professions. According to the most recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, on average, women’s earnings were only 82% of men’s.

Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.