Female Professions Traditionally Suffer From Lower Pay
This is a touchy subject because it holds so much emotion for many people. Indulge me for a moment, read this post through completely before reacting. Many studies and doctoral theses have confirmed females on the average get paid less than men for equivalent work.
That does not mean that all women get paid less than men or that in every workplace a woman automatically gets paid less than her male counterpart. That's silly, it's not that simplistic. However, whether it's unfair or illogical or whatever, it's the reality.
Extend this logic and we find traditionally female professions (i.e., professions in which women predominate) tend to have a lower pay scale regardless of the nature of the work or the educational requirements needed. Look at nursing (until very recently), teaching, child care, flight attending, social work, etc. Clinical Lab science is such a profession as well:predominantly female, low pay for important work by educated professionals.
One of the things the nursing profession has done in recent years is to aggressively recruit men and to portray more men in their ads. Not only does this diversity encourage recruitment into the profession, but it has the down-line benefit of positively affecting wages as well. I wonder if this also has implications for clinical lab science, in terms or recruitment as well as salaries.
There are many reasons why society and employers have traditionally undervalued women's contribution to the workplace; the glass ceiling has been around for a while and is very difficult to shatter. That debate is way beyond the scope of this blog. What is clear is clinical lab science has suffered the lack of recognition and pay suppression of other female-dominated professions. The question is how (armed with that reality) we can surpass that and turn it around.