Gender and income in pharmacy: human capital and gender stratification theories revisited

This is a case study of gender and earnings in pharmacy - a profession char acterized by its rapid recruitment of female practitioners. We try to accou nt for disparities in earnings between male and female pharmacists in Ontar io with the aid of human capital theory and gender stratification theory. D ata is drawn from a random sample of 463 Ontario pharmacists. We find a consistent sex gap in earnings regardless of occupational level o f practitioners (i.e. owner, manager or employee) and net of such factors a s hours worked, commitment to work, hours devoted to childcare, absences fr om the labour market, and years since graduation. Instead, the main reason why women in pharmacy earn less than males is because they remain employees throughout their careers. However, we are less successful at identifying t he additional factors responsible for the depressed earnings of female prac titioners. We discuss our findings in light of the claims of gender stratif ication and human capital theory.