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Occupational Roles of Ohio’s Practicing Pharmacists
SEX AND AGE FACTORS
Occupational Roles of Ohio's Practicing Pharmacists By Patricia M. Schwirian
A
lthough pharmacy has not traditionally been defined in the U.S. as a "female profession" (i.e., a profession such as nursing or teaching in which supposedly "female" attributes such as nurturance or tenderness are vital), the profession is increasingly being defined as a good one for women. Recruiters cite the high demand for pharmacists, the potential for part-time employment, the possibilities for flexible work schedules and a number of other factors which they feel are of importan~e to the young woman contemplating the combination of marriage and a career. Moreover, significantly more females are currently preparing to become pharmacists and this enrollment trend is increasing with each succeeding pharmacy school class. 1- 3 The purpose of this paper is not to discuss the increased number of women in pharmacy; that increase has already been widely documented. Rather our purpose is to explore the professional role alternatives for women in pharmacy and whether or not current data suggest that these role alternatives and expectations for young women pharmacists ate likely to change. Specifically we examine the opportunities in the pharmacy profession for women in entrepreneurial and administrative positions as opposed to those positions which are strictly "employee." Employed women, professionals and nonprofessionals alike, have traditionally assumed positions which are neither entrepreneurial, administrative or managerial. Even in the Soviet Union where 75 percent of the total number of physicians are women (in the U.S. it is seven percent) the proportions of women in the higher echelons of medicine (or any other profession for that matter) decrease sharply with the rank of the positions. 4 The assignment of women to nonmanagerial 618
jobs as weli as the failure to promote women to higher positions through the channels open to men have been based on several widely held contentions. Foremost, of course, is the contention that the primary responsibility for the maintenance of home and family belongs to women and that their out-ofthe home working life is therefore interrupted and diluted by this domestic responsibility. Moreover the greater the domestic responsibility the more disruptive it is to the career. This has been borne out in many cases; in general data show that the more children a woman has the less she participates in the labor force. For example, according to 1960 statistics for women in general those who marry at age 20 and have one child have a work-life expectancy of 25 years, whiie those with two children have a work life expectancy of 22 years. 5 A second barrier to women's assumption of entrepreneurial, administrative and management positions is simply that the behavior-norms for "bosses" as a class and "women" as a class conflict. As McCord has described the dilemma in the business world, "The established norms of acceptable behavior in the business environment are those of the white heterosexual male. Women interested in achieving a position in management have to decide whether to exhibit characteristics considered desirable for men-and have their femininity questioned-or behave in ways that characterize women, and accept second-class status. " 6 Another significant barrier is the group of attitudes toward women as employees and potential managers which are held by the predominately male managerial establishment. In a recent study of 174 male managers' attitudes toward working women, Bass, Krusell and Alexander concluded that "man-
Journal of the AMERICAN PHARMACEUTICAL ASSOCIATION
agers did not feel that women would make good supervisors. This does not appear to be because women were perceived as less capable than men ... Rather, the managers indicated that they felt that other men and women would prefer having male supervisors and that they themselves would be uncomfortable with a woman supervisor. " 7 They observed further that, "Managers in this sample felt that women were not as dependable as m~n because of women's biological and personal characteristics. " 8 It should be noted that these attitudinal barriers which generally limit the occupational levels for which women are considered (and for which many aspire) are not restricted to the male half of the population. These beliefs have carried over into socialization patterns resulting in strong commitment to these behavioral norms by women as well as men. Many women feel quite uncomfortable with the notion of full equality of opportunity and responsibility and many more women are vigorously and vocally opposed to the idea. Witness, for example, the significant · opposition of large, well-organized articulate groups of women raised against the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1972 and 1973. These are a few of the reasons that employed women are found primarily in the positions of lower responsibility, prestige and pay in almost all business and professional sectors. Our focus here is on the profession of pharmacy and what the distribution of females is in entrepreneurial, administrative and employee positions. We will also determine the extent to which age and type of professional practice (i.e., independent and chain pharmacies, hospital and other) are associated with changes in this distribution. Finally,
we will indicate some future directions which the roles of women in the profession of pharmacy are likely to take. Patricia M. Schwirian is assistant professor at Ohio State University school of nursing. She received her BS from Illinois State University, her MS from the University of Iowa and her PhD in education from Ohio State University. She is currently conducting a .five-year longitudinal study on the professional socialization of over I ,000 pharmacy students.
Data and Analysis
The data base for these observations is Health Manpower information collected from approximately 9,000 registered pharmacists in Ohio as part of the 1972 registration procedure. The effective sample size is 6,601-the number of respondents for whom data on the four variables of interest-sex, type of position, age and type of practice- were complete. The categories of th e dependent variable-type of position- were defined by the data collecting instrument sent to registration applicants by the state board o(pharmacy. They were directed to check one of four "present type of position" categories. The four which were provided were- owner, partner, administrator and employee pharmacist. For the analysis in this paper, the respondents who checked owner or partner have been grouped together as entrepreneurs.* Findings
The data m Table I (below) indicate that of the 6,601 registered pharmacists in Ohio for whom data were complete-(1) the overall majority of registered pharmacists (65 percent) classify themselves as employees, about one-third are owners or partners, and less than 10 percent are administrators; (2) the vast majority (89 percent) are males and (3) there are significantly lower proportions of women than men in entrepreneurial and administrative positions (10 percent and 38 percent, respectively). The Ll value of 28.9 indicates that almost a third of the women registered pharmacists would have to shift out of the employee category in order to have a distribution similar to that of the males. This clearly indicates that in Ohio, women are proportionally under-represented in the positions of greater responsibility in pharmacy practice. Intervening Effect of Age-One would logically expect the distribution of pharmacists in the three categories representing ownership, administration and employee status to be affected by
*
To analyze the data, the Chi-squared (X2) statistic was computed for each distribution to determine whether or not there are statistically different distributions of each g roup withzn the position categories of (1) Owner or Partner, (2) Administrator and (3) Employee. If the distributions we re found to be significantly d~fferent and the independent va riab le was dichotomous (as in the case of Sex) an Index of Dissimilarity 6.
= ~[ %X
-
% Y] was computed for each
2
distribution. The statistic 6. is an interval indicator of just how different two distributions are. Specifically, 6. is the percent of one g roup which would have to shift into other categories in order to have a distribution equal to that of the second l!, roup .
the age distribution of the population. For this sample the question is posedWith age controlled are the distributions of men and women by type .o f position similar? For the purposes of the study the variable age was trichotomized; the three groups are-pharmacists who are 30 and under, those between 31 and 45 years of age, and those older than 45. The overall distribution of pharmacists in Ohio by age is- 19 percent in the youngest group; 39 percent in the 31-45 age group, and 42 percent who are over 45. As shown in Table I the distribution of owners, administrators and employees between these age groups differs significantly.* In each group the majority is in the employee category; in the two older groups about one-third are owners and partners while less than 10 percent of the younger pharmacists are in this category. The distribution of administrators does not differ markedly by age but the middle age group has the highest percentage (8.9 percent)
*(X2 -
341.65; p
< .001)
while the youngest and oldest group both have about 6 1/z percent of their members who are administrators. Further examination of the data in Table I shows that women are proportionally under-represented in ownership and administrative positions at every age level. The greatest difference by sex is seen in the 31 ·to 45 age group with almost half of the men (47 percent) in entrepreneurial or administrative positions and only 10 percent of the women similarly employed. The smallest difference by sex is in the youngest age group where 83 percent of the men and 98 percent of the women have employee status; this difference, however, is still statistically significant. These data indicate cl~arly that while Ohio male pharmacists have progressed into higher positions over time, the professional activity of their female counterparts has remained at about the same level. Intervening Effect of Type of PracticeAnother question to be examined· is the extent to which the type of professional practice in which pharmacists engage serves to affect the distribution of males and females in each of the three posi-
TABLE I
Distribution of Ohio Registered Pharmacists b)! Age, Sex and Type of Position Type of Position Owner or Partner
Administrator
Employee
Total
Percent
Percent
Percent
Number
9.3 0.9 7.8
7.6 1.3 6. 5
83 . 1 97 . 7 85 . 7
1,043 223 1' 266
31 - 45 years old* Males Females Total
36.8 6.9 33 . 1
9.7 3.4 8. 9
53.5 89 . 6 58.0
2,225 316 2,541
O ver 45 years old* Males Females Total
33 . 2 11. 8 31.5
6.7 3. 3 6.4
60.2 84.9 62.1
2,582 212 2,794
Total Males Total Females Grand Total*
30 . 4 6.5 27.6
7.9 2.8 7.4
61.7 90 . 7 65.0
5,850 751 6,601
Age and Sex Under .31 years old* Males Females Total
*The distribution of males a nd fem a les is significa ntly different beyond th e .001 level of probability. Complete X2 a nd 6. d ata may be obtained from the author.
Vol. NS13, No. 11, November 1973
619
tion categories. Obviously one is not going to find very many owners-male or female- among hospital pharmacists. The 6,601 respondents were grouped .into four practice categoriesindependent pharmacy, chain pharmacy, hospital pharmacy and other. This "other" category includes a wide diversity of activities-e.g., armed forces, government, industry, education and retired-no single group of which exceeded four percent of the total population of the state's registered pharmacists. Of the 6,601 registered pharmacists in the sample, 53 percent report that they work in independent community pharmacies, 28 percent are in chain stores, 13 percent are engaged in hospital practice and the remaining 6 percent fall into the "other" category. Of these pharmacists who practice in independent pharmacies, about half classify themselves as owners or partners and the other half are employees. However, as Table II (right) shows, among the females associated with independent pharmacies only about 13 percent are in anything other than the employee category. In the chain pharmacies, while the vast majority of all pharmacists are employees, about 10 percent of the males report administrative or managerial responsibilities but less than one percent of the females are similarly employed. In hospital pharmacy-a practice area in which higher proportions of women are engaged than any other practice field,* only eight percent have administrative responsibilities while over 20 percent of the male hospital pharmacists have similar positions. Simultaneous Effects of Sex, Age and Type of Practice-Since neither age nor type of practice are really independent of each other in their effect on the distribution of male and female pharmacists within the three position categories, Table III (page 621) was developed to ascertain the simultaneous intervening effects of age, type of practice and sex on the distribution of Ohio pharmacists among entrepreneurial, administrative and employee positions. These data clearly indicate that regardless of age, women pharmacists engaged in practice in independent community pharmacies are less likely than men to be involved in enterpreneurial or administrative activities. They start out as employees and they remain employees, whereas males have moved into entrepreneurial and administrative roles · as they got older-the big jump being between the "30 and under" and "31 and 45" categories.
*
Of Ohio's hospital pharmacists, 25 p ercent are women; 70 percent of pharmacists in independent practices are women, as are only seven percent of chain pharmacists. At the national level , one-third of all hospital pharmacists in 1960 were women.9
620
TABLE II
Distribution of Ohio Registered Pharmacists by Type of Practice, Sex and Type of Position Type of Position
Independent* Male Female Total
Owner or Partner
Administrator
Employee
Total
Percent
Percent
Percent
Number
54 . 0 12 . 4 49 . 5
1.3 0.3 1. 2
44.7 87 . 3 49 . 3
3,156 371 3,527
Chain** Male Female Total
1.4 0 1.3
9 .2 0.7 8. 5
89.4 99.3 90.2
1, 673 134 1,807
Hospital* Male Female · Total
1.1 0 0.8
20 . 1 7.9 17 . 0
78.8 92 . 1 82 . 2
643 216 859
Other** Male F emale Total
9.8 10 . 0 9.8
37 . 8 6.7 35 . 5
52.4 83.3 54 . 7
378 30 408
Grand Total
27.6
7.4
65 . 0
6,601
*The distribution of males a nd females is sig nifica ntl y diflerent beyond the .001 level of proba bility. * * Indicates significance beyond the .01 level. Complete X2 a nd A data may be obtained from the author.
Of those Ohio pharmacists employed by chains, while there are never as many women as men in administrative positions, the difference was found to be statistically significant only in the 31-45 age group in which 80 percent of the males are employees while 98 percent of the females are in this category. Among the hospital pharmacists there is no significant difference in the malefemale distributions in administrative and employee positions in the oldest group (over 45 years of age), but the differences are significant in both the middle and younger groups; these groups account for 70 percent of all hospital pharmacists. Women consistently occupy proportionately fewer administrative positions than their male counterparts in hospital pharmacies. Discussion
From the foregoing data presentation it is clear that the pattern of underrepresentation of females in entrepreneurial and administrative positions which characterizes the business and professional world in general also characterizes the profession of pharmacy in Ohio. Since it is likely that pharmacy practice in Ohio could be described as typical of that in most other sections of the U.S., the author suggests that this distributional difference by sex could also be observed in the nationwide population of registered pharmacists. A few of the conditions that contribute to this imbalance have already
Journal of the AMERICAN PHARMACEUTICAL ASSOCIATION
been mentioned-i.e., (1) the assumption that a woman's primary responsibility is domestic and that this dilutes her professional efforts and ability, (2) that the behavioral norms in our society for "bosses" and for "women" are in conflict and (3) the generally negative attitude of male managers toward the prospect of females in positions of significant status and responsibility. Is the situation likely to change in the near future? There are a number of changes in the profession, in social and legal conditions and in young women themselves that would indicate that it will. First of all, as our data show, the practice setting in which the proportion of women in entrepreneurial and administrative positions is by far the lowest ·regardless of age is the independent community pharmacy. The number of this type of pharmacy has been declining and is predicted to continue to do so. Therefore the proportion of all . pharmacists engaged in independent community practice also will decline, 10 and presumably larger proportions of women will shift into other practice areas in which the chances to assume positions of greater responsibility seem better. Secondly, there is simply going to be more "woman power" in pharmacy due to increased work rates of younger women and the fact that degrees conferred to women seem destined to increase at a faster rate than degrees conferred on men. 11
TABLE III
Distribution of Ohio Registered Pharmacists by Sex, Age, Type of Practice and Type of Position Type of Position Owner or Partner
Administrator
Employee
Total
Percent
Percent
Percent
Number
Under 31 Years Old Independent* Males Females Chain Males Females Hospital*** Males Females Other Males Females
24.5 2.1
1. 6 0
73.9 97 . 9
364 95
1.0 0
5.5 0
93.5 100 .0
416 46
0.9 0
17.2 2.7
81.9 97 . 3
215 75
4.2 0
27 . 1 14 . 3
68 . 8 85.7
48 7
64 . 5 11.8
1. 4 0
34.1 88 . 2
1223 170
2.2 0
12.7 1.8
85 . 1 98.2
637 57
0.9 0
25.9 11.7
73 . 3 88 . 3
232 77
9.8 16 . 7
42.9 8. 3
47 . 4 75 . 0
133 12
52.6 22 . 6
1.1 0.9
46.3 76 . 4
1569 106
1.0 0
8. 1 0
91.0 100.0
620 31
1. 5 0
16 . 3 9.4
82 . 1 90.6
196 64
11.2 9. 1
37 . 1 0
51.8 90 .9
197
31-45 Years Old Independent* Males Females Chain*** Males Females Hospital*** Males Females Other Males Females
Over 45 Years 0 ld Independent* Males Females Chain Males Females Hospital Males Females Other*** Males Females
11
*The distribution of males and fem a les is significantly difterent beyond the .001 level of probability. **Indicates significance beyond the .01 level. *** Indicates significance beyond the .OS level. Complete X 2 and fJ. data may be obtained from the au thor.
Another major factor which will contribute to the redistribution of female pharmacists into positions of greater responsibility, pay and prestige is the social and legal redefinition of the rights of employed minorities including women, i.e., an increasing awareness of the necessity for equal opportunity employment practices and the legal demands that such practices be observed. It simply is no longer socially defensible nor legally feasible to promote a man over an equally qualified or better qualified woman simply because he is a man. This type of pressure will probably be felt soonest and most keenly by the larger organizations employing pharmacists since their practices are most readily visible to social critics and to those agencies charged with the enforcement of equal employment legislation. Finally and perhaps most importantly, among the reasons why more women
pharmacists will be included in positions of greater responsibility and authority in all kinds of practice settings is that the current and future crop of young professional women-including pharmacists, of course-is quite different from their predecessors in terms of their actions and attitudes which impinge on their careers. Girls are not necessarily being socialized into accepting the "traditional" passive female role ; it has been shown that females who are "successfully" socialized in this way are conditioned to educational, occupational and social limitations. 12 In other words, more young female pharmacists are going to feel that they are suited for and indeed deserve · to be promoted to positions of greater responsibility and prestige for which they are qualified. · One of the reasons commonly given for the failure of women to rise higher than the "employee" ranks is that they
have interrupted their careers during the early-marriage-and -child-rearing period, thereby missing the career period in which the most rapid professional advancement usually takes place and also not keeping up with recent advances in their field. More and more young women feel that this career interruption is not necessary-that home, family and career are a feasible combination. A sample of this attitudinal change may be seen in the comparison of data collected in 1968 and again in 1971 from the same group of students in one women's college. In 1968 only 19 percent of the freshmen endorsed a statement that women should be allowed to choose to be entirely free of domestic responsibilities in order to work on an equal footing with men. Nearly four years later, 53 percent of the same women (now seniors) endorsed this "liberated" viewpoint. 13 Although female pharmacists and pharmacy students, like their male counterparts, generally tend to be conservative individuals in matters of attitudes toward social change-a situation which does not lead one to expect a strongly "liberated" element among female pharmacists- current data indicate that whatever their social motives young women pharmacists are not dropping out of the labor foroe in the numbers previously observed. 14 Summary
Pharmacy is one of the health professions which is increasingly being defined as a good one for women-a profession with significant status, good pay and good opportunities. Moreover, many more young women are entering the field than was formerly the case. However, data from 6,601 registered pharmacists in Ohio demonstrate that women are proportionally under-represented in entrepreneurial and administrative positions within the profession. These are of course the positions of greatest responsibility, prestige and financial reward. This generally lower status of women in the profession which corresponds to that of women in other sectors of business and professional life is a direct consequence of widely held opinions of the proper role and behavior of women in our society. These opinions are changing and so are the young women who are preparing to enter professional life. The result of these changes will be significant improvement of the status of women in pharmacy and the role they play in the development of the profession. • References 1. Schwirian, P.M. , "Pharmacy-Business or Health Profession? Attitudes of Ohio's Future Pharmacists," Bull. of Business R esearch, 66, 12 (1971)
(continued on page 637) Vol. NS13, No. 11, November 1973
621
Occupational Roles of Ohio's Practicing Pharmacists By Patricia M. Schwirian
A
lthough pharmacy has not traditionally been defined in the U.S. as a "female profession" (i.e., a profession such as nursing or teaching in which supposedly "female" attributes such as nurturance or tenderness are vital), the profession is increasingly being defined as a good one for women. Recruiters cite the high demand for pharmacists, the potential for part-time employment, the possibilities for flexible work schedules and a number of other factors which they feel are of importan~e to the young woman contemplating the combination of marriage and a career. Moreover, significantly more females are currently preparing to become pharmacists and this enrollment trend is increasing with each succeeding pharmacy school class. 1- 3 The purpose of this paper is not to discuss the increased number of women in pharmacy; that increase has already been widely documented. Rather our purpose is to explore the professional role alternatives for women in pharmacy and whether or not current data suggest that these role alternatives and expectations for young women pharmacists ate likely to change. Specifically we examine the opportunities in the pharmacy profession for women in entrepreneurial and administrative positions as opposed to those positions which are strictly "employee." Employed women, professionals and nonprofessionals alike, have traditionally assumed positions which are neither entrepreneurial, administrative or managerial. Even in the Soviet Union where 75 percent of the total number of physicians are women (in the U.S. it is seven percent) the proportions of women in the higher echelons of medicine (or any other profession for that matter) decrease sharply with the rank of the positions. 4 The assignment of women to nonmanagerial 618
jobs as weli as the failure to promote women to higher positions through the channels open to men have been based on several widely held contentions. Foremost, of course, is the contention that the primary responsibility for the maintenance of home and family belongs to women and that their out-ofthe home working life is therefore interrupted and diluted by this domestic responsibility. Moreover the greater the domestic responsibility the more disruptive it is to the career. This has been borne out in many cases; in general data show that the more children a woman has the less she participates in the labor force. For example, according to 1960 statistics for women in general those who marry at age 20 and have one child have a work-life expectancy of 25 years, whiie those with two children have a work life expectancy of 22 years. 5 A second barrier to women's assumption of entrepreneurial, administrative and management positions is simply that the behavior-norms for "bosses" as a class and "women" as a class conflict. As McCord has described the dilemma in the business world, "The established norms of acceptable behavior in the business environment are those of the white heterosexual male. Women interested in achieving a position in management have to decide whether to exhibit characteristics considered desirable for men-and have their femininity questioned-or behave in ways that characterize women, and accept second-class status. " 6 Another significant barrier is the group of attitudes toward women as employees and potential managers which are held by the predominately male managerial establishment. In a recent study of 174 male managers' attitudes toward working women, Bass, Krusell and Alexander concluded that "man-
Journal of the AMERICAN PHARMACEUTICAL ASSOCIATION
agers did not feel that women would make good supervisors. This does not appear to be because women were perceived as less capable than men ... Rather, the managers indicated that they felt that other men and women would prefer having male supervisors and that they themselves would be uncomfortable with a woman supervisor. " 7 They observed further that, "Managers in this sample felt that women were not as dependable as m~n because of women's biological and personal characteristics. " 8 It should be noted that these attitudinal barriers which generally limit the occupational levels for which women are considered (and for which many aspire) are not restricted to the male half of the population. These beliefs have carried over into socialization patterns resulting in strong commitment to these behavioral norms by women as well as men. Many women feel quite uncomfortable with the notion of full equality of opportunity and responsibility and many more women are vigorously and vocally opposed to the idea. Witness, for example, the significant · opposition of large, well-organized articulate groups of women raised against the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1972 and 1973. These are a few of the reasons that employed women are found primarily in the positions of lower responsibility, prestige and pay in almost all business and professional sectors. Our focus here is on the profession of pharmacy and what the distribution of females is in entrepreneurial, administrative and employee positions. We will also determine the extent to which age and type of professional practice (i.e., independent and chain pharmacies, hospital and other) are associated with changes in this distribution. Finally,
we will indicate some future directions which the roles of women in the profession of pharmacy are likely to take. Patricia M. Schwirian is assistant professor at Ohio State University school of nursing. She received her BS from Illinois State University, her MS from the University of Iowa and her PhD in education from Ohio State University. She is currently conducting a .five-year longitudinal study on the professional socialization of over I ,000 pharmacy students.
Data and Analysis
The data base for these observations is Health Manpower information collected from approximately 9,000 registered pharmacists in Ohio as part of the 1972 registration procedure. The effective sample size is 6,601-the number of respondents for whom data on the four variables of interest-sex, type of position, age and type of practice- were complete. The categories of th e dependent variable-type of position- were defined by the data collecting instrument sent to registration applicants by the state board o(pharmacy. They were directed to check one of four "present type of position" categories. The four which were provided were- owner, partner, administrator and employee pharmacist. For the analysis in this paper, the respondents who checked owner or partner have been grouped together as entrepreneurs.* Findings
The data m Table I (below) indicate that of the 6,601 registered pharmacists in Ohio for whom data were complete-(1) the overall majority of registered pharmacists (65 percent) classify themselves as employees, about one-third are owners or partners, and less than 10 percent are administrators; (2) the vast majority (89 percent) are males and (3) there are significantly lower proportions of women than men in entrepreneurial and administrative positions (10 percent and 38 percent, respectively). The Ll value of 28.9 indicates that almost a third of the women registered pharmacists would have to shift out of the employee category in order to have a distribution similar to that of the males. This clearly indicates that in Ohio, women are proportionally under-represented in the positions of greater responsibility in pharmacy practice. Intervening Effect of Age-One would logically expect the distribution of pharmacists in the three categories representing ownership, administration and employee status to be affected by
*
To analyze the data, the Chi-squared (X2) statistic was computed for each distribution to determine whether or not there are statistically different distributions of each g roup withzn the position categories of (1) Owner or Partner, (2) Administrator and (3) Employee. If the distributions we re found to be significantly d~fferent and the independent va riab le was dichotomous (as in the case of Sex) an Index of Dissimilarity 6.
= ~[ %X
-
% Y] was computed for each
2
distribution. The statistic 6. is an interval indicator of just how different two distributions are. Specifically, 6. is the percent of one g roup which would have to shift into other categories in order to have a distribution equal to that of the second l!, roup .
the age distribution of the population. For this sample the question is posedWith age controlled are the distributions of men and women by type .o f position similar? For the purposes of the study the variable age was trichotomized; the three groups are-pharmacists who are 30 and under, those between 31 and 45 years of age, and those older than 45. The overall distribution of pharmacists in Ohio by age is- 19 percent in the youngest group; 39 percent in the 31-45 age group, and 42 percent who are over 45. As shown in Table I the distribution of owners, administrators and employees between these age groups differs significantly.* In each group the majority is in the employee category; in the two older groups about one-third are owners and partners while less than 10 percent of the younger pharmacists are in this category. The distribution of administrators does not differ markedly by age but the middle age group has the highest percentage (8.9 percent)
*(X2 -
341.65; p
< .001)
while the youngest and oldest group both have about 6 1/z percent of their members who are administrators. Further examination of the data in Table I shows that women are proportionally under-represented in ownership and administrative positions at every age level. The greatest difference by sex is seen in the 31 ·to 45 age group with almost half of the men (47 percent) in entrepreneurial or administrative positions and only 10 percent of the women similarly employed. The smallest difference by sex is in the youngest age group where 83 percent of the men and 98 percent of the women have employee status; this difference, however, is still statistically significant. These data indicate cl~arly that while Ohio male pharmacists have progressed into higher positions over time, the professional activity of their female counterparts has remained at about the same level. Intervening Effect of Type of PracticeAnother question to be examined· is the extent to which the type of professional practice in which pharmacists engage serves to affect the distribution of males and females in each of the three posi-
TABLE I
Distribution of Ohio Registered Pharmacists b)! Age, Sex and Type of Position Type of Position Owner or Partner
Administrator
Employee
Total
Percent
Percent
Percent
Number
9.3 0.9 7.8
7.6 1.3 6. 5
83 . 1 97 . 7 85 . 7
1,043 223 1' 266
31 - 45 years old* Males Females Total
36.8 6.9 33 . 1
9.7 3.4 8. 9
53.5 89 . 6 58.0
2,225 316 2,541
O ver 45 years old* Males Females Total
33 . 2 11. 8 31.5
6.7 3. 3 6.4
60.2 84.9 62.1
2,582 212 2,794
Total Males Total Females Grand Total*
30 . 4 6.5 27.6
7.9 2.8 7.4
61.7 90 . 7 65.0
5,850 751 6,601
Age and Sex Under .31 years old* Males Females Total
*The distribution of males a nd fem a les is significa ntly different beyond th e .001 level of probability. Complete X2 a nd 6. d ata may be obtained from the author.
Vol. NS13, No. 11, November 1973
619
tion categories. Obviously one is not going to find very many owners-male or female- among hospital pharmacists. The 6,601 respondents were grouped .into four practice categoriesindependent pharmacy, chain pharmacy, hospital pharmacy and other. This "other" category includes a wide diversity of activities-e.g., armed forces, government, industry, education and retired-no single group of which exceeded four percent of the total population of the state's registered pharmacists. Of the 6,601 registered pharmacists in the sample, 53 percent report that they work in independent community pharmacies, 28 percent are in chain stores, 13 percent are engaged in hospital practice and the remaining 6 percent fall into the "other" category. Of these pharmacists who practice in independent pharmacies, about half classify themselves as owners or partners and the other half are employees. However, as Table II (right) shows, among the females associated with independent pharmacies only about 13 percent are in anything other than the employee category. In the chain pharmacies, while the vast majority of all pharmacists are employees, about 10 percent of the males report administrative or managerial responsibilities but less than one percent of the females are similarly employed. In hospital pharmacy-a practice area in which higher proportions of women are engaged than any other practice field,* only eight percent have administrative responsibilities while over 20 percent of the male hospital pharmacists have similar positions. Simultaneous Effects of Sex, Age and Type of Practice-Since neither age nor type of practice are really independent of each other in their effect on the distribution of male and female pharmacists within the three position categories, Table III (page 621) was developed to ascertain the simultaneous intervening effects of age, type of practice and sex on the distribution of Ohio pharmacists among entrepreneurial, administrative and employee positions. These data clearly indicate that regardless of age, women pharmacists engaged in practice in independent community pharmacies are less likely than men to be involved in enterpreneurial or administrative activities. They start out as employees and they remain employees, whereas males have moved into entrepreneurial and administrative roles · as they got older-the big jump being between the "30 and under" and "31 and 45" categories.
*
Of Ohio's hospital pharmacists, 25 p ercent are women; 70 percent of pharmacists in independent practices are women, as are only seven percent of chain pharmacists. At the national level , one-third of all hospital pharmacists in 1960 were women.9
620
TABLE II
Distribution of Ohio Registered Pharmacists by Type of Practice, Sex and Type of Position Type of Position
Independent* Male Female Total
Owner or Partner
Administrator
Employee
Total
Percent
Percent
Percent
Number
54 . 0 12 . 4 49 . 5
1.3 0.3 1. 2
44.7 87 . 3 49 . 3
3,156 371 3,527
Chain** Male Female Total
1.4 0 1.3
9 .2 0.7 8. 5
89.4 99.3 90.2
1, 673 134 1,807
Hospital* Male Female · Total
1.1 0 0.8
20 . 1 7.9 17 . 0
78.8 92 . 1 82 . 2
643 216 859
Other** Male F emale Total
9.8 10 . 0 9.8
37 . 8 6.7 35 . 5
52.4 83.3 54 . 7
378 30 408
Grand Total
27.6
7.4
65 . 0
6,601
*The distribution of males a nd females is sig nifica ntl y diflerent beyond the .001 level of proba bility. * * Indicates significance beyond the .01 level. Complete X2 a nd A data may be obtained from the author.
Of those Ohio pharmacists employed by chains, while there are never as many women as men in administrative positions, the difference was found to be statistically significant only in the 31-45 age group in which 80 percent of the males are employees while 98 percent of the females are in this category. Among the hospital pharmacists there is no significant difference in the malefemale distributions in administrative and employee positions in the oldest group (over 45 years of age), but the differences are significant in both the middle and younger groups; these groups account for 70 percent of all hospital pharmacists. Women consistently occupy proportionately fewer administrative positions than their male counterparts in hospital pharmacies. Discussion
From the foregoing data presentation it is clear that the pattern of underrepresentation of females in entrepreneurial and administrative positions which characterizes the business and professional world in general also characterizes the profession of pharmacy in Ohio. Since it is likely that pharmacy practice in Ohio could be described as typical of that in most other sections of the U.S., the author suggests that this distributional difference by sex could also be observed in the nationwide population of registered pharmacists. A few of the conditions that contribute to this imbalance have already
Journal of the AMERICAN PHARMACEUTICAL ASSOCIATION
been mentioned-i.e., (1) the assumption that a woman's primary responsibility is domestic and that this dilutes her professional efforts and ability, (2) that the behavioral norms in our society for "bosses" and for "women" are in conflict and (3) the generally negative attitude of male managers toward the prospect of females in positions of significant status and responsibility. Is the situation likely to change in the near future? There are a number of changes in the profession, in social and legal conditions and in young women themselves that would indicate that it will. First of all, as our data show, the practice setting in which the proportion of women in entrepreneurial and administrative positions is by far the lowest ·regardless of age is the independent community pharmacy. The number of this type of pharmacy has been declining and is predicted to continue to do so. Therefore the proportion of all . pharmacists engaged in independent community practice also will decline, 10 and presumably larger proportions of women will shift into other practice areas in which the chances to assume positions of greater responsibility seem better. Secondly, there is simply going to be more "woman power" in pharmacy due to increased work rates of younger women and the fact that degrees conferred to women seem destined to increase at a faster rate than degrees conferred on men. 11
TABLE III
Distribution of Ohio Registered Pharmacists by Sex, Age, Type of Practice and Type of Position Type of Position Owner or Partner
Administrator
Employee
Total
Percent
Percent
Percent
Number
Under 31 Years Old Independent* Males Females Chain Males Females Hospital*** Males Females Other Males Females
24.5 2.1
1. 6 0
73.9 97 . 9
364 95
1.0 0
5.5 0
93.5 100 .0
416 46
0.9 0
17.2 2.7
81.9 97 . 3
215 75
4.2 0
27 . 1 14 . 3
68 . 8 85.7
48 7
64 . 5 11.8
1. 4 0
34.1 88 . 2
1223 170
2.2 0
12.7 1.8
85 . 1 98.2
637 57
0.9 0
25.9 11.7
73 . 3 88 . 3
232 77
9.8 16 . 7
42.9 8. 3
47 . 4 75 . 0
133 12
52.6 22 . 6
1.1 0.9
46.3 76 . 4
1569 106
1.0 0
8. 1 0
91.0 100.0
620 31
1. 5 0
16 . 3 9.4
82 . 1 90.6
196 64
11.2 9. 1
37 . 1 0
51.8 90 .9
197
31-45 Years Old Independent* Males Females Chain*** Males Females Hospital*** Males Females Other Males Females
Over 45 Years 0 ld Independent* Males Females Chain Males Females Hospital Males Females Other*** Males Females
11
*The distribution of males and fem a les is significantly difterent beyond the .001 level of probability. **Indicates significance beyond the .01 level. *** Indicates significance beyond the .OS level. Complete X 2 and fJ. data may be obtained from the au thor.
Another major factor which will contribute to the redistribution of female pharmacists into positions of greater responsibility, pay and prestige is the social and legal redefinition of the rights of employed minorities including women, i.e., an increasing awareness of the necessity for equal opportunity employment practices and the legal demands that such practices be observed. It simply is no longer socially defensible nor legally feasible to promote a man over an equally qualified or better qualified woman simply because he is a man. This type of pressure will probably be felt soonest and most keenly by the larger organizations employing pharmacists since their practices are most readily visible to social critics and to those agencies charged with the enforcement of equal employment legislation. Finally and perhaps most importantly, among the reasons why more women
pharmacists will be included in positions of greater responsibility and authority in all kinds of practice settings is that the current and future crop of young professional women-including pharmacists, of course-is quite different from their predecessors in terms of their actions and attitudes which impinge on their careers. Girls are not necessarily being socialized into accepting the "traditional" passive female role ; it has been shown that females who are "successfully" socialized in this way are conditioned to educational, occupational and social limitations. 12 In other words, more young female pharmacists are going to feel that they are suited for and indeed deserve · to be promoted to positions of greater responsibility and prestige for which they are qualified. · One of the reasons commonly given for the failure of women to rise higher than the "employee" ranks is that they
have interrupted their careers during the early-marriage-and -child-rearing period, thereby missing the career period in which the most rapid professional advancement usually takes place and also not keeping up with recent advances in their field. More and more young women feel that this career interruption is not necessary-that home, family and career are a feasible combination. A sample of this attitudinal change may be seen in the comparison of data collected in 1968 and again in 1971 from the same group of students in one women's college. In 1968 only 19 percent of the freshmen endorsed a statement that women should be allowed to choose to be entirely free of domestic responsibilities in order to work on an equal footing with men. Nearly four years later, 53 percent of the same women (now seniors) endorsed this "liberated" viewpoint. 13 Although female pharmacists and pharmacy students, like their male counterparts, generally tend to be conservative individuals in matters of attitudes toward social change-a situation which does not lead one to expect a strongly "liberated" element among female pharmacists- current data indicate that whatever their social motives young women pharmacists are not dropping out of the labor foroe in the numbers previously observed. 14 Summary
Pharmacy is one of the health professions which is increasingly being defined as a good one for women-a profession with significant status, good pay and good opportunities. Moreover, many more young women are entering the field than was formerly the case. However, data from 6,601 registered pharmacists in Ohio demonstrate that women are proportionally under-represented in entrepreneurial and administrative positions within the profession. These are of course the positions of greatest responsibility, prestige and financial reward. This generally lower status of women in the profession which corresponds to that of women in other sectors of business and professional life is a direct consequence of widely held opinions of the proper role and behavior of women in our society. These opinions are changing and so are the young women who are preparing to enter professional life. The result of these changes will be significant improvement of the status of women in pharmacy and the role they play in the development of the profession. • References 1. Schwirian, P.M. , "Pharmacy-Business or Health Profession? Attitudes of Ohio's Future Pharmacists," Bull. of Business R esearch, 66, 12 (1971)
(continued on page 637) Vol. NS13, No. 11, November 1973
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