Association Between Gender and Payments Received From Pharmaceutical Companies Among Medical Professors and Associate Professors in Japan.

Abstract

Introduction While prior research showed gender gaps in industry payments for medical professionals in the United States, there are limited data in Japan. So, this study seeks to investigate the potential gender gap in the receipt of pharmaceutical companies (PFCs) across all medical fields in Japan. Based on the results of previous studies, we developed a hypothesis that male doctors get more PFC than female doctors. Materials and methods Data from 92 pharmaceutical companies in Japan, covering 2016 to 2019, were analyzed. The analysis was conducted on professors and associate professors at all national and public medical universities in Japan, with gender as a factor variable and payments as an outcome variable, and variables that may have influenced the factor or outcome variables in previous studies, such as specialization, university type, region, rank and years since graduation, as control variables.Payments were converted to US dollars using the December 31, 2021, rate of 115 yen to the dollar for comparison purposes. Results Out of 1,825 subjects, 1,755 were males and 70 females. Males consistently received higher median payments from pharmaceutical companies (PFCs) than females across categories. In particular, among physicians specializing in internal medicine, the median PFC for men was $25 compared to $8 for women. For physicians affiliated with former imperial universities (the seven former imperial universities founded before World War II), the median PFC for men was $32compared to $5 for women. Multivariate analysis confirmed significantly higher total benefits for males from 2016 to 2019, with the gender gap widening during this period(incidence rate ratio (IRR) for 2016: 0.51, IRR for 2019: 0.44). Conclusions Japanese male professors and associate professors received significantly higher PFCs than their female counterparts, and this gender gap expanded from 2016 to 2019, highlighting persistent gender inequality in the medical field in Japan, similar to trends observed in the United States.