Women have grown to occupy more space in the professional world and that includes dentistry. Today, 37.7% of working dentists in the US are female (Health Policy Institute, 2024), which might appear to be a relatively small proportion but compared to the 24.1% in 2010, it’s quite an improvement (HPI: Women Make up Growing Percentage of Dental Workforce, 2021)

Yet, despite the growing numbers in the dental industry and the advancement of women’s movements, the pay gap is still very much present. In 1990, a female dentist made approximately $66,000 compared to her male counterpart who earned nearly $144,000. In 2010, the gap remained, female dentists earned about $120,000 while male dentists earned $185,000 (Now, 2018).

Today, a 22% pay gap still exists (Gundavarapu et al., 2023). I know because I have had firsthand experience with this. Recently, I went to a work interview and prior to the interview day, I had negotiated a daily rate of $700, which I was comfortable with. On the day of the interview, I saw a male colleague of mine and as we were catching up, I learned that he was given a daily rate of $750. Learning this information was troubling and here is why it concerned me: He had 6 months of work experience while I had 2 years of work experience. He was not open to doing root canals while I was open to doing all types of procedures. When looking at the situation objectively, his clinical preferences limited his production for the office and yet he was still earning more money than me. That’s when I started to question if the fear of negotiating was a personal weakness or a weakness shared by all women.

Original Article: https://www.dentemagazine.site/post/you-re-worth-it-overcoming-the-negotiation-gap

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