This year will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the AUA Annual Census. One of the main goals of the AUA Census is to better understand the urologic workforce and trends in the practice of urology. As such, the AUA Census is a key tool to tracking changes in the workforce. Since 2014, the AUA Census has been able to demonstrate the increase in women in urology as well as Hispanics in urology. At the same time, the representation of Black urologists has remained unchanged. Women urologists make up 12% of the urologic workforce but 25% of urologists less than 45 years of age. Urologists who identify as Hispanic make up 5% of the workforce, an increase of almost 1% since 2014. Representation of Black urologists has remained stable between 2% and 3% of the workforce between 2014 and 2022. One challenge in analyzing data of various racial and ethnic groups in the urologic workforce is that often the numbers are too low to allow for detecting statistically significant differences.

AUA Census data have allowed a better understanding of how women urologists practice differently from men. Women urologists are more likely than men to be fellowship trained. Although younger urologists are more likely to be fellowship trained than older ones, in each age bracket the percentage of fellowship-trained women exceeds men. Looking at urologists < 45 years of age, 72% of women and 64% of men are fellowship trained. For urologists 45 years of age or older, 59% of women and only 33% of men are fellowship trained. A similar trend holds true for practice setting. Women are more likely to choose academic practice than men (45% of women and 26% of men) and less likely to choose private practice (32% of women and 54% of men). Despite men and women urologists working the same number of hours per week, self-reported salary is lower in each age group for women urologists compared to men. Women report spending more time with a patient in a typical office visit. Women also plan to retire at a younger age than men.¹

Sixty-six percent of women urologists report negative differential treatment based on gender compared to only 3% of men. About 20% of non-White urologists report negative differential treatment based on race compared to 3% of White urologists. More than 25% of women report limitations in seeing certain patients due to gender compared to 2% of men. There are gender differences in work-life integration. Fifty-eight percent of men and 40% of women report being satisfied or very satisfied with work-life balance. In terms of conflict between work and personal responsibility, 25% of men and 5% of women report no conflict, and 66% of men and 43% of women feel that their schedule leaves enough time for personal and/or family life. Most concerning is that burnout rates among women urologists increased from 35% in 2016 to 49% in 2021. During this same time period, burnout among men urologists remained relatively stable from 36% to 35%.²

Although the AUA Census can be a useful tool in understanding the urologic workforce, there are some limitations. Reporting meaningful subgroup data in the AUA Census requires an adequate number of respondents. These numbers are difficult to achieve for some of the underrepresented groups in urology. Increasing participation in the AUA Census may help mitigate this challenge.