IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0186896.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Perceptions of gender equality, work environment, support and social issues for women doctors at a university hospital in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Author

Listed:
  • Shehla Baqi
  • Amal Albalbeesi
  • Sundus Iftikhar
  • Naila Baig-Ansari
  • Mohammad Alanazi
  • Awadh Alanazi

Abstract

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is an Islamic monarchy and was established in 1932. Saudi women first entered the medical field in 1975 and the country has since seen a steady increase in women pursuing medicine. However, there is limited data on gender related issues for women doctors practicing in Saudi Arabia. Therefore, our study objective was to assess the perception amongst peers regarding gender equality and social issues faced by women doctors in Saudi Arabia. An online anonymous cross-sectional survey was administered in English to doctors at King Khalid Hospital, affiliated to King Saud University, in Riyadh, between April and May of 2016. Of 1015 doctors, 304 (30%) participated, of which 129 (42.4%) were females and 231 (76%) were Saudi nationals. The average age was 32.4 years (±SD: 8.7). The majority opined that there was no gender discrimination in salaries (73.7% p-value = 0.4), hospital benefits (62.2% p-value = 0.06) or entry into any field of Medicine/Pediatrics (68.4% p-value = 0.207). However, only a minority believed that there was no gender discrimination for entry into surgery (37.3% p-value = .091). A higher proportion of male doctors agreed that promotion opportunities are equal (66.3% vs 45.7%, p-value = 0.002). However, of 54 consultants, only 18 (33.3%) were women. Over half of the women (52.3%) reported that they never wear the face veil. Only a minority of male and female doctors (12.2%) believed women doctors should wear the veil since they examine male patients. Fewer respondents believed that female doctors face harassment from male doctors (14.5%) whereas 30.7% believed female doctors face harassment from male patients. More females, than males, agreed with the statement that female doctors are as committed to their careers as are males (92.2% vs 67.4%, p-value

Suggested Citation

  • Shehla Baqi & Amal Albalbeesi & Sundus Iftikhar & Naila Baig-Ansari & Mohammad Alanazi & Awadh Alanazi, 2017. "Perceptions of gender equality, work environment, support and social issues for women doctors at a university hospital in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(10), pages 1-18, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0186896
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0186896
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0186896
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0186896&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0186896?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wang, Chao & Sweetman, Arthur, 2013. "Gender, family status and physician labour supply," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 17-25.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Agnès Charpin & Josep Amer-Mestre & Noémi Berlin & Magali Dumontet, 2024. "Gender Differences in Early Occupational Choices: Evidence from Medical Specialty Selection," Working Papers hal-04455212, HAL.
    2. Terence C. Cheng & Guyonne Kalb & Anthony Scott, 2018. "Public, private or both? Analyzing factors influencing the labour supply of medical specialists," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(2), pages 660-692, May.
    3. Kralj, Boris & O'Toole, Danielle & Vanstone, Meredith & Sweetman, Arthur, 2022. "The gender earnings gap in medicine: Evidence from Canada," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(10), pages 1002-1009.
    4. Megha Swami & Hugh Gravelle & Anthony Scott & Jenny Williams, 2018. "Hours worked by general practitioners and waiting times for primary care," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(10), pages 1513-1532, October.
    5. Kalb, Guyonne & Kühnle, Daniel & Scott, Anthony & Cheng, Terence Chai & Jeon, Sung-Hee, 2015. "What Factors Affect Doctors' Hours Decisions: Comparing Structural Discrete Choice and Reduced-Form Approaches," IZA Discussion Papers 9054, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Mikol, Fanny & Franc, Carine, 2019. "Gender differences in the incomes of self-employed French physicians: The role of family structure," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 123(7), pages 666-674.
    7. McPake, Barbara & Russo, Giuliano & Tseng, Fu-Min, 2014. "How do dual practitioners divide their time? The cases of three African capital cities," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 113-121.
    8. Song, Jia & Cheng, Terence C., 2020. "How do gender differences in family responsibilities affect doctors' labour supply? Evidence from Australian panel data," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 265(C).
    9. Guyonne Kalb & Daniel Kuehnle & Anthony Scott & Terence Chai Cheng & Sung‐Hee Jeon, 2018. "What factors affect physicians' labour supply: Comparing structural discrete choice and reduced‐form approaches," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(2), pages 101-119, February.
    10. Magali Dumontet & Carine Franc, 2015. "Gender differences in French GPs’ activity: the contribution of quantile regressions," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 16(4), pages 421-435, May.
    11. Charlotta Magnusson, 2016. "The gender wage gap in highly prestigious occupations: a case study of Swedish medical doctors," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 30(1), pages 40-58, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0186896. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.