Although Women Dominate the Nursing Profession, Do Men Make More Money?

[allnurses]

Male nurses make $5000/year more across all specialties than their female counterparts. This was proven in our survey as well. And more importantly WHY? USA Today has an interesting take on this. They theorize that women frequently leave the workforce to care for children or family issues. When they return to work, they typically return to the same salary/hourly rate that they left with while men, who traditionally don't take time off from work for child care, continue up the salary scale. AN has had discussions also about the earnings disparity.

Stubborn Pay Gap is Found in Nursing: Males Earn $5100 more/Yr details a JAMA study released in March 2015 which was partially compiled by census data. Several posters in this thread agreed with all these findings by providing anecdotal incidents.

Another thread, from 2011, Male Nurses on the Rise and they Make More Money provides us with more possible reasons for this disparity: men work more overtime hours, men work more off-shifts and more males work in the higher acuity units like ICU and ER. Some members also pointed out that males seem more willing to try to negotiate for a higher salary when hired.

So, let's get some more input - why do you think male nurses earn more than female nurses?

References:

Male Registered Nurses Make Thousands More in Salary than Female Counterparts

Women Dominate Nursing, Yet Men Make More

[tnbutterfly - Mary, BSN]

In the complete results of the allnurses salary survey you will see hourly as well as annual wages. You will also be able to use interactive graphs to plug in various factors such as gender, licensure, degree, years of experience, geographic location. This will allow you to customize your search for salary information in your area.

[elkpark]

Guy in Babyland said:

The study you cited is a generic study of pay gap throughout all professions. This thread is nursing specific. Hospitals have pay scales for nurses, not one scale for male nurses and another for female nurses. If you hired 2 new grad nurses for your unit, one male and one female, you start them out at the same pay rate. 10 yrs later if they are still working in the same unit and the same job then their pay rate will be equal.

The fact that the studies that were referenced in the reports I posted are general rather than nursing specific doesn't automatically mean they don't apply to nurses.

My employer (a large academic medical center, the largest employer in the region) posts all positions, nursing and otherwise, with a salary range, not a specific figure. There can be a significant difference between the minimum point and the maximum point. Managers have a lot of flexibility to offer different people different wages for the same job, depending on their qualifications, experience, and whatever other considerations the manager might consider relevant (as well as the negotiating skill of the applicant). People here can certainly be working the same job on the same unit and be getting paid significantly different wages. That has been the case with most of the hospitals for which I've worked over the years.

As for your example of two new grads making the same amount ten years later, are you saying that your employer also does not offer any merit raises? That seems unlikely to me.

[llg, PhD, RN]

elkpark said:

As for your example of two new grads making the same amount ten years later, are you saying that your employer also does not offer any merit raises? That seems unlikely to me.

Hate to say it, elkpark, but most of my employers did not give merit raises. Two former employers did and it was messy. Most of my employers have not.

[elkpark]

llg said:

Hate to say it, elkpark, but most of my employers did not give merit raises. Two former employers did and it was messy. Most of my employers have not.

Wow ... I don't think I've ever heard of that.

[Theloneyoni1]

I have given this subject some thought (as I am sure most of you have). One realization that I had was that as a person, I was a terrible negotiator. As a matter of fact, I would take what the HR person was offering. I remember being sooooo grateful to be hired into my first job. I just said, yes! of course! when can I start!

After some time and experience, I realized that the longer I stayed where I was, the slower my income would increase.

Fast-forward - I now have experience, I've grown up as a person (OK, not totally), I have a better understanding of how the corporate hospital model works and I know my own worth.

Now, I know that (if one works in a non-union state for a corporate or even remotely competitive hospital) HR has a chart. They've mined the data, seen what everyone else in the area in paying and picked a range of numbers. Usually, this is tied to years of experience.

Now when they give me the number, I push the wiggle room that I know they've built into their offer.

I think it's a potentially volatile generalization but I'll put it out there; women (in general) don't negotiate - men do.

[JayHanig]

You sure could have fooled me. I must have been cheated. I worked my last five years as a weekender. They paid me a published hourly wage and as far as I know, every weekender got the same. The pay wasn't a secret; we talked among ourselves. The only time we ever got a raise was when our hospital learned they were no longer competitive... about once every three years.

So I don't buy it. I don't think I got a dime more than any other RN with equivalent experience.

[CHESSIE]

MikeFromMT said:

How long are we going to keep beating this horse?

I just posted this in the other thread.

Men tend to make more money based upon the hours they work, both amount and time of day, as well as being willing to leave one job for a better paying one, women tend to work fewer hours and will stay in a job they like for less pay rather than risk their comfort for what's behind door number three. This has been well documented in several studies.

Even in my personal life this is true, my wife wants 5 shifts per pay period in exchange for a guarantee of steady work but lower pay, I work relief where I can self schedule, I get a higher base pay but am also the first to be called off for low census, even with my call offs I still take home substantially more money than she does. I also am willing to go in on days off if we are short staffed. She isn't.

Your post was interesting. However, I have some questions for you.

1. Do you have children?

2. If you have children who is responsible for most of the child care,

taking the child/children to doctor appointments,

sports practice/s.

Who gets up at night for feedings, or for a sick child or children

Who takes a child or children to day care, preschool, various school activities, and friend/s' houses or

goes to parent/teacher meetings?

3. If you have children do you really share in their care or take half or more responsibility in their care?

4. Is your wife responsible for the care of or help with an elderly, frail parent/s? Do you take equal or more responsibility for this care, if it is needed?

All these responsibilities, very often even in the 21st century, fall more heavily on women than on men. This is why in a two income partnership the female partner may have to cut back on a work schedule.

If you truly take on half or more of all of these family care responsibilities, then maybe your wife should work more hours.

[TiffyRN, BSN, PhD]

CHESSIE said:

All these responsibilities, very often even in the 21st century, fall more heavily on women than on men. This is why in a two income partnership the female partner may have to cut back on a work schedule.

If you truly take on half or more of all of these family care responsibilities, then maybe your wife should work more hours.

Chessie,

I ask this completely from a spirit of inquiry and no aggressiveness (you know how online writing struggles to communicate tone). I think I agree with you that gender pay gap is related to social obligations that are linked to female role expectations. Do you think the answer is with holding employers responsible to rectify this gap? I think that's my concern. And understand I'm very liberal, tend to not stand on the side of big business and all. Where does the "fault" lie in this pay gap? I have some ideas but in order to keep posts more manageable I'll add it to another posting.

[TiffyRN, BSN, PhD]

So to further elaborate. . . . I have serious doubts that the gender pay gap is the result of out-and-out discrimination (in the US anyway). I am going to quote the lady I referenced on page 1 of this discussion from a paper she wrote a couple of years ago. Harvard economist, specialist in gender gap issues, Claudia Goldin:

"What, then, is the cause of the remaining pay gap? Quite simply the gap exists because hours of work in many occupations are worth more when given at particular moments and when the hours are more continuous. That is, in many occupations earnings have a nonlinear relationship with respect to hours. A flexible schedule comes at a high price, particularly in the corporate, finance and legal worlds."

She discusses the "price of flexibility". When I heard her talk on the podcast she discussed how there is a significant pay gap in the legal profession and that especially among attorneys, women migrate to corporate law, where there are set schedules and they can do part-time work. The highest earners have unpredictable and long hours that do not mesh well with family obligations. This makes a lot of sense to me.

I still have trouble believing that (in general) male nurses are paid more per hour than their female coworkers. Now, does the average male nurse make more per year than the average female nurse? I think there's a very good chance of that. I know where I work, and I hear this echoed all over this board, men generally work more hours, migrate towards the more lucrative specialties and tend to be aggressive in job advancement. Women often take a backseat because they are torn by their family obligations. Also, at least in my area, all the major employers do a market survey and adjust hourly pay to be commensurate with average pay across the area. To help keep us from job hopping. Every year or two, we are evaluated to make sure we are at the minimum for our years of experience. Also, there is a pay range and you max out at the same number, no matter your chromosomal composition.

The Goldin piece is abstracted here: Claudia Goldin on the gender pay gap - Marginal REVOLUTION

You can find a link to the full piece but I don't feel like doing the APA thing, I'm not starting my daily schoolwork until later today!

[Sixtyseven]

What I have seen in my 20 plus years of nursing is that the men are consistently promoted to management positions over women with more experience. No sooner do they have their RN than management starts eyeing them. Women in management fawn over them. However, I have seen that gay men fare no better than female nurses in moving up the ladder.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

I've answered this question before in other threads, but here goes:

Once upon a time, my husband and I, both working in the CTICU of the large university teaching hospital where we were living decided to pull up stakes and move across country. When we applied for new jobs in our new city in the large university teaching hospital, we were both hired at the same rate even though I had five years more nursing experience, had a MSN as opposed to my husband's diploma, had more experience in the specialty for which we were hired. I had also published, designed and taught classes, written and updated hospital policies and unit procedures -- none of which he had done.

We were told when we started that if we completed a project, taught an in-service, participated in a committee and had no write-ups, we would be promoted one step and get a 5% pay increase. I did all of that and more. Hubby not only had a write-up but announced that he had no intention of doing all that extra work "for nothing" and didn't do it. He got the promotion and the pay raise. I did not.

Future promotions are a percentage of your pay rate. As the years past, the gap between our pay rates increased. We both worked day/night rotating and we both worked the same weekends and holidays. I didn't get pregnant or take maternity leave. He worked some overtime shifts, but that did not change our base pay rate. After ten years, he was making significantly more PER HOUR than me. And I still had more education, more experience, participated in committees, wrote and published articles and designed and taught classes.

I don't know how you explain all that except for gender discrimination. HE wasn't being discriminated against.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

Guy in Babyland said:

The study you cited is a generic study of pay gap throughout all professions. This thread is nursing specific. Hospitals have pay scales for nurses, not one scale for male nurses and another for female nurses. If you hired 2 new grad nurses for your unit, one male and one female, you start them out at the same pay rate. 10 yrs later if they are still working in the same unit and the same job then their pay rate will be equal.

I wish that were true, but it isn't. Even with more experience in nursing, more experience in the specialty and more education, I still make less per hour than my husband working in the same unit in the same hospital. Gender discrimination would explain that. Nothing else seems to.