Dive Brief:

• In a light-hearted approach to a serious issue, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found mustachioed men were more prevalent in top positions than women, highlighting the lack of female leadership. 
• The study looked at headshots of over 1,000 top staff at National Institutes of Health-funded medical schools. 
• Overall, men with mustaches held 20% of the department head positions, compared to 13% held by women.

Dive Insight:

The study was published in the holiday issue of the British Medical Journal. Women held over 20% of the top roles in only five of the 20 specialties studied (obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, dermatology, family medicine, and emergency medicine). Mustachioed men, on the other hand, held over 20% of roles in 10 specialties. 

“The lack of women in leadership roles in medicine is well-documented, but despite the eccentricities of the study, our results show that even when you focus solely on men with mustaches – which are rare – women are still outnumbered across various specialties,” said the lead author, Mackenzie Wehner, a resident physician at Penn Medicine. 

In this case, mustaches were defined as the presence of hair on the upper lip, whether as part of a beard or on the lip alone.