Health equity implications of a feminized health care workforce

Scholars of health equity have focused on mitigating disparities rooted in structural disadvantages for the most marginalized sectors of society. Men’s unfavorable health outcomes compared to women have been seen as products of biology, not social determinants, and therefore outside the scope of efforts to address inequities. Since the late twentieth century, however, women across the globe have overcome previous barriers to participation in the healthcare workforce and quickly outnumbered men in most roles. While women’s growing dominance in most health professions is a welcome corrective to their previous exclusion, their success masks a failure of men to adapt to a changing socioeconomic landscape. One possible consequence of the feminization of the health professions will be the increasing difficulty of matching patients and clients with a clinician of the same sex. Evidence for the benefits of sex concordance between health professional and client is incomplete yet compelling. Including men as a group susceptible to health inequities acknowledges that even people with structural advantages can be impacted by social determinants that lead to negative health consequences.