A Most Egalitarian Profession: Pharmacy and the Evolution of a Family-Friendly Occupation

Abstract

Pharmacy today is a highly remunerated female-majority profession with a small gender earnings gap and low earnings dispersion. Using extensive surveys of pharmacists, as well as the US Census, American Community Surveys, and Current Population Surveys, we explore the gender earnings gap, penalty to part-time work, demographics of pharmacists relative to other college graduates, and evolution of the profession during the last half-century. Technological changes increasing substitutability among pharmacists, growth of pharmacy employment in retail chains and hospitals, and related decline of independent pharmacies reduced the penalty to part-time work and contribute to the narrow gender earnings gap in pharmacy.