A Four-State Summary of the Pharmacy Workforce
Objectives: To create a profile of licensed pharmacists in terms of workforce variables in four states in the Midwest region of the United States and to compare profiles of male and female licensed pharmacists to examine differences in workforce variables by gender.
Design:Cross-sectional descriptive survey.
Setting and Participants: Licensed pharmacists in Iowa (n = 508), Minnesota (n = 750), Ohio (n = 1,500), and Wisconsin (n = 1,000). Surveys were sent to the 3,758 licensed pharmacists in summer 1999.
Intervention: Not applicable.
Main Outcome Measures: Respondents reported on demographic variables, work status, work setting, work position, hours worked weekly, and hourly wage. We examined part-time work, hours worked weekly by age category, and secondary pharmacy employment. We compared outcome measures for men and women.
Results: We obtained usable data from 1,742 pharmacists, for a response rate of 52.4%. Approximately 56% of respondents were men. More than 80% of female respondents were younger than 46 years of age, compared with 40% of male licensed pharmacists. Overall, 14.1% of licensed pharmacists were working part-time (< 30 hours per week)æ24.2% of women, compared with 6.3% of men. Most pharmacists working full-time worked in large chain settings. We found little difference between full- and part-time hourly wage rates. Most women working part-time as staff pharmacists were between the ages of 31 and 50, whereas most men working part-time as staff pharmacists were over 60 years of age. On average, female staff pharmacists between the ages of 36 and 40 worked 30.1 hours per week. A larger percentage of female staff pharmacists working part-time worked more hours weekly relative to men. More than 11% of actively practicing pharmacists worked a second pharmacy job.
Conclusion: The number of pharmacists working part-time has increased as the number of women in the pharmacy workforce has risen. These trends have implications for the number of pharmacists required to meet the changing demands of the pharmacy workforce.
The demand for pharmacists in the United States is increasing. The principal trends driving this increased demand are growth in the number of prescriptions dispensed, expansion of pharmacists' roles, and the increased role of drug therapy in patient care. The number of prescriptions dispensed in the United States rose from 1.9 billion in 1992 to 2.6 billion in 1998, an increase of 36.8%. Also, many pharmacists have moved away from
traditional practice settings into nontraditional settings and roles, such as administrative roles in the insurance industry. These factors have contributed to the increased numbers of vacant pharmacist positions, which have risen from 2,700 in 1998 to nearly 7,000 in 2000. Given the apparent shortage of pharmacists, it is important that the profession obtain information about the pharmacist workforce. Knowledge of pharmacists' characteristics, where they work, how often they work, and how their characteristics influence where and how much they work, is important if we are to understand whether and how the demand for pharmacists can be met with the limited supply.
Our four-state (Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin) research group formed to address workforce issues at a regional level. Our main goal was to develop a standardized set of questions and to collect data on a core set of workforce variables from licensed pharmacists in each of the four states. The core variables were categorized as follows: work statusæwhether the respondent was actively practicing pharmacy or working outside of the profession; current employmentæpractice setting, position,
earnings, hours worked, and years employed in the current job; demographic informationæage, sex, ethnicity, education, marital status, and year licensed. The core variables were selected on the basis of past research profiling the national pharmacy workforce, and for consistency with information collected in some of the four states over the past 20 years in order to track workforce trends.
The gender distribution of the pharmacist workforce is important. Since 1985 a majority of students graduating with entry-level degrees from schools of pharmacy in the United States have been women. It has been estimated that by 2003 a majority of practicing pharmacists will be women. The increasing number of women in the profession has a range of implications for the pharmacist workforce, since research has shown that women work fewer hours per week than men, are more likely to work part-time, and are more likely to move in and out of the workforce. Therefore, a comparison of differences between male and female pharmacists in terms of the core variables collected in the four-state survey should yield a more complete understanding of the current state of the pharmacist workforce and the directions it is likely to take in the next 25 years or so.
Objectives: To create a profile of licensed pharmacists in terms of workforce variables in four states in the Midwest region of the United States and to compare profiles of male and female licensed pharmacists to examine differences in workforce variables by gender.
Design:Cross-sectional descriptive survey.
Setting and Participants: Licensed pharmacists in Iowa (n = 508), Minnesota (n = 750), Ohio (n = 1,500), and Wisconsin (n = 1,000). Surveys were sent to the 3,758 licensed pharmacists in summer 1999.
Intervention: Not applicable.
Main Outcome Measures: Respondents reported on demographic variables, work status, work setting, work position, hours worked weekly, and hourly wage. We examined part-time work, hours worked weekly by age category, and secondary pharmacy employment. We compared outcome measures for men and women.
Results: We obtained usable data from 1,742 pharmacists, for a response rate of 52.4%. Approximately 56% of respondents were men. More than 80% of female respondents were younger than 46 years of age, compared with 40% of male licensed pharmacists. Overall, 14.1% of licensed pharmacists were working part-time (< 30 hours per week)æ24.2% of women, compared with 6.3% of men. Most pharmacists working full-time worked in large chain settings. We found little difference between full- and part-time hourly wage rates. Most women working part-time as staff pharmacists were between the ages of 31 and 50, whereas most men working part-time as staff pharmacists were over 60 years of age. On average, female staff pharmacists between the ages of 36 and 40 worked 30.1 hours per week. A larger percentage of female staff pharmacists working part-time worked more hours weekly relative to men. More than 11% of actively practicing pharmacists worked a second pharmacy job.
Conclusion: The number of pharmacists working part-time has increased as the number of women in the pharmacy workforce has risen. These trends have implications for the number of pharmacists required to meet the changing demands of the pharmacy workforce.
The demand for pharmacists in the United States is increasing. The principal trends driving this increased demand are growth in the number of prescriptions dispensed, expansion of pharmacists' roles, and the increased role of drug therapy in patient care. The number of prescriptions dispensed in the United States rose from 1.9 billion in 1992 to 2.6 billion in 1998, an increase of 36.8%. Also, many pharmacists have moved away from
traditional practice settings into nontraditional settings and roles, such as administrative roles in the insurance industry. These factors have contributed to the increased numbers of vacant pharmacist positions, which have risen from 2,700 in 1998 to nearly 7,000 in 2000. Given the apparent shortage of pharmacists, it is important that the profession obtain information about the pharmacist workforce. Knowledge of pharmacists' characteristics, where they work, how often they work, and how their characteristics influence where and how much they work, is important if we are to understand whether and how the demand for pharmacists can be met with the limited supply.
Our four-state (Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin) research group formed to address workforce issues at a regional level. Our main goal was to develop a standardized set of questions and to collect data on a core set of workforce variables from licensed pharmacists in each of the four states. The core variables were categorized as follows: work statusæwhether the respondent was actively practicing pharmacy or working outside of the profession; current employmentæpractice setting, position,
earnings, hours worked, and years employed in the current job; demographic informationæage, sex, ethnicity, education, marital status, and year licensed. The core variables were selected on the basis of past research profiling the national pharmacy workforce, and for consistency with information collected in some of the four states over the past 20 years in order to track workforce trends.
The gender distribution of the pharmacist workforce is important. Since 1985 a majority of students graduating with entry-level degrees from schools of pharmacy in the United States have been women. It has been estimated that by 2003 a majority of practicing pharmacists will be women. The increasing number of women in the profession has a range of implications for the pharmacist workforce, since research has shown that women work fewer hours per week than men, are more likely to work part-time, and are more likely to move in and out of the workforce. Therefore, a comparison of differences between male and female pharmacists in terms of the core variables collected in the four-state survey should yield a more complete understanding of the current state of the pharmacist workforce and the directions it is likely to take in the next 25 years or so.
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