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Posted 9-22-99
Doctors married to doctors reported having higher family incomes, worked longer combined hours, and assumed greater roles in raising children than in marriages where one doctor is in the house, a study at Case Western Reserve University has found.
While most physicians reported career success, gender differences still prevailed, with female physicians lagging in careers and male physicians running behind in providing time on the home front.
The Annals of Internal Medicine recently published the study, "When Doctors Marry Doctors: A Survey Exploring the Professional and Family Lives of Young Physicians." from CWRU's Department of Sociology and School of Medicine.
More and more doctors are finding spouses within their profession. The number is approaching 50 percent for women, according to Susan Hinze, assistant professor of sociology. She presented the findings last month at the 94th Annual American Sociological Association meeting in Chicago.
Other authors on the study that looked at how dual-doctor marriages affect careers and home life were Nancy W. Sobecks, formerly of CWRU School of Medicine; Amy C. Justice, assistant professor of internal medicine; Heidi Chirayath, graduate student in the Department of Sociology; Rebecca Lasek, an alumna and medical doctor from Shaker Heights; Mary-Margaret Chren, adjunct assistant professor of medicine; John Aucott from the Park Medical Group at Johns Hopkins University; Richard Fortinsky at the University of Connecticut; Seth Landefeld from the Division of Geriatrics at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in San Francisco; and Barbara Juknialis and Stuart Youngner from CWRU's Program in Health Care Research.
More than 1,200 graduates from medical schools at CWRU and the University of Cincinnati responded to a 76-question survey in 1995, providing important new information about the professional and family lives of dual-doctor marriages for the study.
As women reach parity with men in attending medical school, little information is available on dual-doctor marriages and how it affects their personal and professional lives.
With health care undergoing changes with a wild flux in work arrangements and managed care, Hinze says, the changes, coupled with gender dynamics, are going to make corporations sit up and take notice.
"They are worried about keeping physicians happy, but those doctors will not be happy if driven to work 70-80 hours a week," she says.
"Overall dual-doctor marriages have a better life and more contentment," adds Hinze.
Chirayath notes that couples tended to earn less individually (although their combined incomes were higher than in one-doctor marriages), work less hours, did not feel their careers took precedence over their spouse's career, and played a greater role in raising children.
A random 100 members from the graduation classes between 1980 and 1990 at the two universities received surveys with questions on areas such as career goals, number of hours worked in a week, incomes earned, spouse's occupation, conflicts between professional and non professional lives, and the degree of sacrifices in career to satisfy marriage and child-rearing responsibilities.
From 2,000 physicians queried, 1,208 doctors (60 percent) responded. Sixty-two percent of them were men, 22 percent of them were married to doctors. The respondents had an average age of 37.5 years, had salaries over $100,000, and came from diverse medical specialties.
Of the 456 women in the study, 44 percent were married to doctors. The women tended to be the primary caregiver for the children and rearranged work schedules to care for children.
According to Hinze, few men felt their professional lives limited for family reasons, while 25 percent of the women reported "substantial limitations." In marriages where a male physician was married to a non-physician, he had a higher income and had the lowest involvement in rearing children.
Sociologists predicted in the 1970s that as women reached parity with men in education and occupation, the same would happen within the family. Hinze notes, "We're not so sure about that now, given our findings." She said it seems that the man's career often still takes precedence.
Hinze plans to use information from the study as a springboard for a new study from the sociology department that will look more closely at how gender and family play a role on medical marriages.
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