The Employed Spouse: Impact on Physician's Career and Family Decisions

As more women acquire professional qualifications, the numbers of couples in which both spouses are professionals will increase. All physicians living in Ontario who had been certified in family medicine between 1989 and 1991, after completing a residency, were surveyed in the autumn of 1993. Seventy percent responded. Among those married, the husbands and wives were equally likely to be professionally qualified (80%). Relationships between spouses’ professional status and employment level (full-time, part-time, not employed) and some characteristics of the physicians were found. However, among these couples, in which dual-careers predominated, traditional roles were substantially retained, particularly when there were children in the households, although there is evidence that some role adaptations had occurred. While it is typical that the woman in the couple reduced the time she spent in paid employment, it does not appear that the men physicians in the group studied were undertaking many additional income-generating activities to compensate for their wives’ lower income. The preponderance of dual-career couples in this cohort may suggest a further increase in geographic disparities in physician distribution.