According to the survey released recently at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management, women do not charge as much for their professional services as their male counterparts despite providing the same kind of work. The study said the reason for this is the woman’s “concern for relationships with clients.”

Citing a random sampling of 536 veterinarians, the study said female vets tended to charge their less privileged clients less than what they would charge their more affluent customers. Males, on the other hand, had a standard set of charges which did not change depending on the client’s situation. About one third of the study’s respondents were women.

The study said the women vets brought down their prices out of concerns for their customers and because they “cared more about their relationships with their customers than did the men.”

The study involved the vets answering questions about a hypothetical situation wherein a 12-year-old dog with advanced kidney failure was brought to their attention. The hypothetical client was described either as a young professional or an elderly widow. The study found that the women charged the widow less than the young professional for the same service.

The study also mentioned, though, that in the bigger veterinary practices, women vets tended to charge their clients more because they “took into consideration the needs of their co-workers as well.”

The study noted that women made price adjustments after taking into consideration the situation of their customers and that of their colleagues. Apparently, the relationships of women with their various publics held greater weight than the relationships of men with theirs.

The study cited a similar instance in 2003 when a separate research study produced the same results. During that instance, researchers found that female mortgage lenders earned $575 less per loan compared to male mortgage lenders. According to that study, women brokers “were more concerned about establishing good relationships and being nice” than their male counterparts.

Overall, the study also mentioned the fact that based on US government statistics, women earned about 80 cents for every dollar that the men made.