Preliminary research on gender bias among rehabilitation workers

Abstract

　The purpose of this study was to conduct a questionnaire survey on gender bias in the rehabilitation profession and to preliminarily examine what types of gender bias are found. An Internet‐based questionnaire survey was administered to active rehabilitation professionals in Japan. The questionnaire consisted of relevant basic attributes, 18 items on gender bias (referred to hereon as questionnaire items), and a free‐text field for opinions and experiences on gender bias. Statistical processing was conducted to: 1) compare between basic attributes of the subjects for each question item; 2) examine the correlation between each questionnaire item; and 3) compare two corresponding groups of questions that were paired such that their content was the same except for the words “male" and “female". The results indicated that: 1) significant differences were found in several questions regarding age, affiliation, years of experience, and family members living in the same household; 2) there were weak correlations between the age of the subject and questions about women's work and management styles, and graduate school enrollment; and 3) there was a significant difference between the two corresponding groups of questions. Further, in the free‐text section, there were many comments about the unkind words and treatment from others that were categorized by gender and experienced by both men and women. These results suggest that there are several tendencies of gender bias in the rehabilitation profession in terms of “work style and career",“participation in research groups and conferences",“teaching duties",and“grad‐uate study",depending on basic attributes.