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

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

Guy in Babyland said:

Salary surveys that use "annual salary" are worthless because there are way too many variables to consider them valid. Both Bill and Hillary have 5yrs experience in the ER. Is it fair to compare Bill who works at a Level I trauma center in a high cost of living area where he works nights, many weekends, and a lot of overtime to Hillary who works in a rural county ER with low cost of living in which she works days, no overtime and few weekends? Bill makes $30k/yr. more than Hillary, see the pay gap? Even if they worked in the same hospital there could be a big pay difference.

How can a survey eliminate the variability of night and weekend differential, overtime worked, holidays worked, location pay difference, and weekend only bonus pay?

But how do you explain it if Bill and Hillary started in the same ER on the same day with the same amount of experience and both worked full time. Ten years later, bill makes $40 per hour and Hillary makes $32?

[CHESSIE]

TiffyRN said:

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.

If there is a "fault," and I am not sure that there is a "fault," but it lies with the person who seemed to have a superior attitude toward his/her wife making less money, due to working fewer hours. Perhaps she worked fewer hours due to child care or elder care responsibilities? I do not know, as the person posting did not elaborate, as to why his/her wife worked fewer hours.

Employers should never discriminate, based on gender, neither can they raise the compensation rate for someone unable to work a full 40 hours. The more hours one is able to work, the more money they can earn.

[MikeFromMT]

CHESSIE said:

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.

I'm not really sure what your point is, however I think we agree on why some women make less pay than their male counterparts, as you stated, females tend to be the caregivers and are often stay at home moms so they make less money either hourly or annually, while the men tend to focus on a career or at least how to maximize their income to cover the loss of that second full time income and provide financial security for their families. These are the choices that we make.

As for myself we have no children, not the human kind anyway, I have no issue that my wife makes less pay than I do, or works fewer hours on average than I do, we value our free time and we love our schedules and wouldn't trade either of them for more pay, and that's a perfect example right there, I get more pay for a higher risk of low census and no benefits, she takes less pay for a sure thing with a great schedule and benefits for both of us.

FWIW, I have more experience than she does, we work on the same unit, often times together, we have the same start date at this facility and we have the same base pay. One would think I should have a higher base due to more years as a Nurse, but I don't. Now who's discriminated against? Seriously, we are both very happy with what we get.

[LaDFnDaUSNRN]

Consider Military Active Duty (or Reserve Component) if you want equal pay. Now that all platforms are open to women, many operational jobs are available. We have more men than civilian nursing but the pay scale (& promotion opportunities) are out there.

[Roy Hanson]

probably..male in most cases are the bread winners, no matter WHAT job you look at. But if my wife made more than I did,,so???

For us, all the money goes into a common jar..pay the bills, look after the family, and house. Stop complaining.

[TiffyRN, BSN, PhD]

Ruby Vee said:

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

That's flat out wrong.

It is not my experience though. I've always made more hourly than my husband (as I should for more experience). He will catch up soon though as we both reach our top-out for our positions.

[klone, MSN, RN]

Quote

we have this bulls*** rule that we cannot discuss our pay with other coworkers.

I will continue to beat that drum: it is federally illegal to have such a rule.

[klone, MSN, RN]

Roy Hanson said:

probably..male in most cases are the bread winners, no matter WHAT job you look at. But if my wife made more than I did,,so???

For us, all the money goes into a common jar..pay the bills, look after the family, and house. Stop complaining.

Oh, okay. Thanks for setting me straight. Appreciate the mansplanation.

Need I point out the obvious...that not all women are married? Not all women are married to men? and that if your wife was paid equitably, you'd have MORE money to put into the "common jar"?

[MiniNurseintraining]

llg said:

I agree. While there might be a little bit of pay discrimination sometimes ... I don't think it is rampant in nursing. I think the "usual explanations" -- for the increased pay for men apply. Men nurses tend to be more career-focused, more likely to seek advancement, take less time off, etc.

However, I do think that there is some bias toward men on the hiring side. Having been involved in hiring for many years, I have seen that some people make a special effort to give men and other minorities a chance when it comes to hiring -- or being lenient when it comes to discipline and/or termination. They don't want to appear biased against them, so they make sure they are being "extra fair" when considering a man or minority candidate. Your average woman doesn't get that "extra fairness" as much. Also, some people believe that having men in front-line leadership positions reduces the amount of "catty-ness" among the staff. A little favorable bias there can help a man get on a positive career trajectory early in his career.

I once served on an admissions committee to a large state university school of nursing. Admissions were based on a point system. The people with the most points got accepted. All men and all minorities were automatically awarded an extra point in the process. Working for a hospital, I have had HR tell me that a certain percentage of my hires had to be a minority of some kind (men included in that minority group).

How you type is very confusing.... Are nonwhite women not women? Why do people that talk like you seem to place white women in one category called women and any other women that aren't white are included in the minorities section. So there's a women section, aka white women, and then there's the men or minority section.

Very weird way to talk and I don't know what makes you think you are more woman then other women with two x chromosomes.

[klone, MSN, RN]

MiniNurseintraining said:

How you type is very confusing.... Are nonwhite women not women? Why do people that talk like you seem to place white women in one category called women and any other women that aren't white are included in the minorities section. So there's a women section, aka white women, and then there's the men or minority section.

Very weird way to talk and I don't know what makes you think you are more woman then other women with two x chromosomes.

What the HELL are you talking about?

[MiniNurseintraining]

klone said:

What the HELL are you talking about?

What the hell I'm talking about, is what the hell I said.

The person I quoted separated women and minorities as if there is no such thing as nonwhite women or if your in a white majority country, minority women. I've only ever hear white people, especially white women separate women, minority and men.

I hate labels and I hate seeing others in such nice little boxes. Why say minorities and men get special privileges over women when hiring? So my observation is that she seem to think minorities and women are two separate category as if minority women do not exist.

When have minorities ever gotten special treatment over women? And when you say minorities do you mean men who are nonwhite or any none white person?

It's ********, I've upvoted some of your comments but you seem to act dumb with mine......... The women have always been a protected class, just like minorities, lgbt, etc. Why the hell does she say minority and men get special treatment when it comes to hiring?????

I'm assuming she's neither a minority or a man, so not a man, not a black woman, not a Latin woman, not Asian, but white and woman..... Give me a break with the cluelessness. The comment rubbed me the wrong way, she's white she gets privilege, this whole thread is asking whether or not "men" get paid more than "women" because their men etc.

This whole thread is about privilege and yet you didn't understand my comment? Hmmmmmmm, I don't make a lot of comments but that needed to be said. Take from it whatever you like.

[traumaRUs, MSN, APRN]

As you move into management and APRN roles there is more room for negotiation also. At least that has been my experience