This year, April 9 is Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Women’s Equal Pay Day, the day that highlights the price that AANHPI women pay due to racism and sexism in the workplace and our nation’s broader economic and public policies. AANHPI women workers, including part-time and seasonal employees, are paid 83 cents for every dollar paid to non-Hispanic white men, which totals to $10,000 in missed wages per year. As this blog discusses, this wage gap extends to AANHPI women in healthcare, where, despite AANHPI women playing an essential role within the industry, their work is undervalued regardless of education level and especially in fields where they are overrepresented.
AANHPI Women Have Historically been Overrepresented in Healthcare
The work performed by women of color and the occupations they are concentrated in are both essential and undervalued. Within a political and economic system built on male-centric white supremacy, the jobs white men have historically dominated have had high wages, while women of color are overrepresented in equally essential jobs, but paid far less. These trends are not an accident, but rather the result of deliberate policy decisions.
Within the last century, AANHPI women have been recruited and migrated to the United States to work in roles that fill gaps in the American healthcare system. In 1948, the U.S. government created the Exchange Visitor Program (EVP) to sponsor educational, cultural and skills-based exchanges for visitors to the U.S. The passage of the EVP coincided with a nursing shortage after World War II, caused in part by low wages and harmful working conditions, so many hospitals supplemented their staff by recruiting and sponsoring Filipina nurses to fill this shortage. Despite filling this critical need, Filipina nurses were discriminated against and worked in unsafe conditions deemed unacceptable for native born American nurses. The migration of AANHPI women working in healthcare professions continued to increase after the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which removed nationality-based quotas on Asian immigration and created new skilled worker visa pathways for Asian immigrants. The laws’ enactment coincided with increased demand for healthcare in the US due to the implementation of Medicare and Medicaid in 1966.
This legacy continues today. Between 2020 and 2024, more than one million AANHPI women worked in healthcare occupations in the United States.[1] AANHPI women make up more than 6 percent of all workers in healthcare professions, which is more than double the percentage of all AANHPI women in the workforce.
AANHPI Women Are Undervalued in Healthcare
Despite AANHPI women playing an essential role in the healthcare industry, AANHPI women are undervalued for this work, as demonstrated by a wage gap between AANHPI women and non-Hispanic white men that persists across healthcare professions, including the ones with high degree requirements. In fact, four of the 10 healthcare occupations with the largest wage gaps between AANHPI women and non-Hispanic white men require doctoral degrees, and nine require post-secondary education. That many of these occupations, including physicians and surgeons, are high-paying, prestigious professions suggests that achieving higher education does not negate the marginalization AANHPI women face due to their race and gender. The wage gap in these occupations also clashes against the model minority myth that Asian Americans can, with hard work and education, achieve success without discrimination as a barrier.
Additionally, AANHPI women experience a wage gap in the majority of the occupations where they are overrepresented, demonstrating that AANHPI women’s work is still undervalued in the professions that they are more likely to pursue. AANHPI women may be overrepresented in particular healthcare occupations for a variety of reasons, including because they are employed to fill occupations with poor working conditions or wages, such as the case with recruiting Filipina workers into nursing, or because AANHPI women of certain ethnic backgrounds are more likely to have specialized skills, such as in acupuncture, which is based in traditional Chinese medicine. Regardless of the reason for overrepresentation, eight of the ten professions where AANHPI women are most overrepresented demonstrate a wage gap.
That AANHPI women experience wage gaps in fields where they are overrepresented suggests that, even though these occupations require specialized skills, training, or higher education, and workers in these occupations are in high demand, AANHPI women’s work in these fields is not highly valued, as they are still not paid equally for their work and expertise.
Close the Wage Gap for AANHPI Women in Healthcare
On AANHPI Women’s Equal Pay Day, we acknowledge the critical contributions of Asian American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander women to the American economy. In the field of healthcare, AANHPI women fill critical gaps while simultaneously carving out their own career paths through higher education. Yet, despite the overrepresentation of AANHPI women, they are still undeservedly underpaid, making 83 cents for every dollar made by non-Hispanic white men across all occupations. It is time to stop undervaluing the work of AANHPI women and to recognize their contributions to healthcare and the rest of the economy by paying them what they deserve.
1. Source: National Partnership analysis of 2020-2024 American Community Survey Data via IPUMS USA. Estimate based on respondents 16 and older with earnings in the last 12 months. ↑ Go back up
