1 July 2025
In a highly engaging and topical episode of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) podcast, Pomegranate Health, RACP Fellow Dr Jenny Proimos, and Clinical Associate Professor and researcher Kara Allen, speak about the gender divide impacting careers of female doctors: “The Motherhood Penalty”.
In 2025 has the gender divide decreased as much as we would like to think it has? Are women still adversely impacted in the historically male-dominated medical fraternity? And, what, if anything, is being done by the profession, employers, governing bodies and policy and law makers to stem the negative tide of what is termed, “the leaky pipeline”.
“Having women leaders is important,” says Dr Proimos. “The reason why I raise that is because what we do know is that women leave the system all the way along - what we call the leaky pipeline. If they can't get the right conditions that they need for training they will not train in a particular specialty. If they can't get the right conditions as junior consultants or as consultants that are rising to the ranks, they leave the system and either go into public or go into part time, work or leave medicine altogether and there's a small proportion of women who do that.”
In this episode of Pomegranate Health, both Dr Proimos and Clinical Associate Professor Allen speak to their own research and those of others that showed that the evidence is clear that women are significantly more impacted by their male counterparts when they take time out of their careers to have children.
Their absence, or lack of visibility not only during this period, but in their return, which may require flexibility, adversely impacts their career trajectory, with Dr Proimos stating that in some instances, can even see women leaving the profession.
Dr Proimos and Clinical Associate Professor Allen, provide their expert opinions, insights and research primarily about the impact on female doctors choosing to have children, the impact of mothers returning to work, the lesser impact of parenthood on male doctors, and how a system of change should be developed to support the advancement of women in leadership.
While many professions and industries have moved the dial in leaps and bounds, particularly in the corporate world, are female doctors still of the belief, “I just need to keep my head down and get the work done, so that people know that I'm competent, know that I can do the job.”
Women fill more than half of places in Australian medical schools, representing 45 per cent of all medical practitioners and just 36 per cent of specialists. Why do these numbers dwindle further in many areas of clinical leadership? And why do their male counterparts continue to rise through the ranks not being impacted by their familial status?
While it appears that the age-old issue of mothers being impacted, “the motherhood penalty”, continues to be an ingrained matter, in an unexpected (possibly) twist, it appears that this imbalance is not simply the fate of mothers.
Clinical Associate Professor Allen, spoke about the unwarranted assumptions placed on all women and the unspoken societal gender bias that all women will have caring responsibilities at some point, regardless of being a mother or not, and the impact this has on their career path.
“One interesting finding that we had was that the motherhood penalty, and I'm using quotes around that, affected women who didn't have children. Being in a workplace and being a woman of childbearing age, there was this kind of, ‘we're watching you to make sure that you don't take maternity leave’. Do you really want to take on that big project? Do you really want to start that PhD? Because, you know, even if you're not partnered, even if you haven't expressed an interest in having a family, you're a woman, so at any time you might go off and do this thing that then affects your productivity, affects your ability to contribute to the workplace”, said Clinical Associate Professor Allen.