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According to the University of Michigan Health System’s new research, the gender pay gap in the United States is common. The research revealed that even women physician-scientists are paid almost $12,000 less than their male counterparts per year.

Some of the initial reasoning behind the gap was due to motherhood, less work hours, different academic titles, or other factors. However, in order to get the fairest comparison, the researchers took out of all those possible influence factors from this study.

"Disturbingly, even after we controlled for all those other factors, we found that male doctors were paid more than female doctors for doing the same work," said Dr. Reshma Jagsi, the lead author of the new study from the University of Michigan.

Reshma and her colleagues made this research based on national-wide 800 doctor-researchers’ questionnaires. All of the people who answered the questionnaires had previously won a mid-career award from the government.

According to the study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, male doctors made an average income of about $200,000 per year, while women doctors, about $168,000. If you add up the salary gap for the entire 30-year career, it becomes more than $350,000 in difference between male and female doctor-researchers, which is enough to pay for a spacious house, a retirement nest egg, or a college education.

"Institutions need to take this information seriously and take a hard and closer look at their own salary parity issues," said Ann Bonham, chief scientific officer at the American Association of Medical Colleges.