GENDER DIFFERENCES IN ATTITUDES AND PRACTICE PATTERNS OF PHARMACISTS

The past decade has seen a dramatic increase in the number of females enrolled in pharmacy schools. This has led to speculation that a manpo wer shortage, similar to the current nursing shortage, may be imminent because women are less committed and are less productive than men. Da ta were collected from alumni (n=335) of a midwestern college of pharm acy, graduating classes of 1985, 1986, 1988, 1989, and 1990. In this s tudy the dependent variables were productivity, professional commitmen t, two measures of job satisfaction, and percentage of time spent on v arious pharmacist tasks. The independent variable was gender. Scales w ere developed for two measures of job satisfaction and professional co mmitment (coefficient alphas=0.86, 0.86, 0.90, respectively). Analysis of variance indicated that there were no significant differences betw een gender with regard to productivity, professional commitment, or jo b satisfaction (F=2.19, P=0.140; F=2.764, P=0.97; F=1.817, P=0.179; F= 0.001, P=0.967;). Univariate analysis showed no significant difference s in percentage time spent in various pharmacy tasks between gender gr oups except for management. Males reported spending a greater percenta ge of time in management than women. Chi Square analysis indicated tha t there were no significant differences in practice site selection (X2 (4)=7.02, P=0.135). This suggests that for this sample, women were as productive in, committed to, and satisfied with the profession of pha rmacy as men. Except for management activities, men and women pharmaci sts appeared to spend a similar percentage of time performing various job tasks. Also men and women pharmacists exhibited no significant dif ferences in practice site distribution.