title: Inequalities in the distribution of pharmacists' wage-and-salary earnings: indicators and their development.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Disparities in wages and salaries can be viewed as the dispersion of a statistical distribution that responds to observed and unobserved characteristics, and reflects socioeconomic phenomena such as the interplay of supply and demand, availability of information, and efficiency of markets in their search for equilibrium.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The aim of this study was to explore the nature of inequality in the distribution of pharmacists' wage-and-salary earnings and establish the extent to which inequality primarily occurred because of variation between/among groups or within groups of pharmacists in several classifications of human-capital and job-related preference variables.
  
  
  METHODS
  Data were collected through the use of a survey questionnaire mailed to registered pharmacists in South Florida, USA. Five indicators of inequality (the log earnings variance, the coefficient of variation, the lower median share, the 90-10 decile ratio, and the Gini coefficient) were estimated for eight human-capital classifications and eight job-related classifications. A one-way ANOVA model was applied to the groups in each classification to compare variation between/among versus within pharmacy groups.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Pharmacists' wage-and-salary earnings were more evenly distributed than most income distributions discussed in the literature. They were more equitably distributed for full-time pharmacists than for all pharmacists in the data set. All five-inequality indicators behaved similarly. Notable differences were observed between/among groups within the gender, age group, marital status, number of children, academic degree, and type of primary pharmacy activity classifications.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Inequalities in wages and salaries have been identified both between/among and within pharmacist groups in several classifications using five commonly accepted indicators.
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociobehavioral and Administrative Pharmacy, Nova Southeastern University, College of Pharmacy, 3200 S. University Drive, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33328, USA. Electronic address: cmanuel@nova.edu.
authors.forename: Manuel J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Carvajal
authors.forename: Graciela M
authors.initials: GM
authors.lastname: Armayor
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D005431:Florida; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010595:Pharmacists / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012456:Salaries and Fringe Benefits / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors
keywords: Income distribution; Inequality; Pharmacist workforce; Wages and salaries