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

[GM2RN]

elkpark said:

Every time this topic comes up, people make these same arguments, but there have been repeated studies that have found that, even when you control for all these kinds of variables, women are still making significantly less than men.

From the 2016 update of the AAUW report, The Simple Truth About the Gender Pay Gap:

"Yet not all of the gap can be "explained away." After accounting for college major, occupation, economic sector, hours worked, months unemployed since graduation, GPA, type of undergraduate institution, institution selectivity, age, geographical region, and marital status, Graduating to a Pay Gap found that a 7 percent difference in the earnings of male and female college graduates one year after graduation was still unexplained.

Similarly, Behind the Pay Gap found a 12 per cent unexplained difference in earnings among full-time workers 10 years after college graduations. Other researchers have also found that the gender pay gap is not fully accounted for by women's and men's choices."

In response to your first sentence, simply put, I don't believe it. In nursing anyway, and that IS what this topic is about. There MAY be more truth to it in other occupations, but I don't believe it's as great as some would have us believe. Besides, in this thread at least, the concern is with nurses wages, not others.

[MiniNurseintraining]

Ruby Vee said:

The previous poster was describing hiring and admissions practices where she was employed. So save your indignation for the old white men who created the policies.

Lol, goodbye. As if white women didn't help make the status quo??? So it's white men who are the big bad guys???? Seriously, I used to identify as feminist, up to the point where anyone to offend feminist offended me. That all stopped when anti-feminist pointed at a huge fatal flaw with so called feminist.

So your blaming old white men and only old white men for the state of ALL women....... .. Wow. Okay, you checked YOUR privilege then come back to me..... Wow, just wow. Your statement tells me a lot about you. I guess the only privileges are afforded to old white men.

[MiniNurseintraining]

klone said:

I was waiting to come back and address her post when I wasn't using a phone and could do it justice. But I see that Ruby Vee addressed it much more succinctly than I would have. "Mininurseintraining" - llg was not endorsing anything or claiming any personal beliefs or opinions, she was simply stating the hiring policy at the university where she worked. Your rant was misplaced.

She didn't do anything justice. She didn't address anything I said in my post.

The poster I originally quoted, separated her white self from nonwhite women. She spoke as if there were only three categories to be in, in the workplace:women, minority and men..

So at her workplace you can only be a woman, minority or man???? What about minority women do they exist? She said the "minorities" and men get raises and jobs over the women.... Who exactly see these women she speak of?

Which is why I ask her if there is a such thing as a minority woman? Why is that a bad thing?? Maybe her workplace want an actual diverse workforce, is that a bad thing? Is she upset that a so called minority or man got a job she or her friend wanted?

Is she happy when minority WOMEN get a raise or job offer? Do not scream privilege about one group when you get all types of privilege everywhere. Good bye to you and Ruby lee. I have no problem with this thread, I clicked on it to read it and others comments.

I upvote two of your comments in agreement but her particular post was ridiculous, that's my opinion you have yours.

[GM2RN]

klone said:

What the HELL are you talking about?

LOL. Sorry, but this just struck my funny bone! I have to agree though. I totally did not get the same meaning as the person you quoted!

[llg, PhD, RN]

MiniNurseintraining said:

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.

I'll clarify. People can be categorized on the basis of many different characteristics -- by gender, by race, by religion, by age, by height, by weight, by educational level, by dietary preferences, etc. So while Mininurseintraining may not like labels, we can use them to describe people.

In the US, it is common to use the word "minorities" to refer to anyone who is not white. That is based on the historical fact that the largest single race in the US has been Caucasian. (I acknowledge that the racial mix of Americans is changing -- and I have no problem with that. But that is beside the point.) Because nursing is such a female-dominated profession, the word "minorities" often is understood to include men when discussing nursing.

The state university whose Admissions Committee I served on based its acceptances on a strict point system. The students with the most points were admitted into the program. Anyone who was a "minority" -- meaning any non-white applicants and any male applicants -- were automatically awarded 1 point in an effort to include more of them into the freshman class and promote diversity.

Similarly, as a hiring manager for a hospital, I have at times (not always) been told that a certain percentage of my hires had to be from "minority" groups regardless of their qualifications. (meaning racial minorities or men)

I did not and will not say whether or not I agree with those policies. I am simply reporting that they have existed. Many people on allnurses have never served on a school admissions committee or seen the "back stage" of the hiring process and I thought that such factual information might be of interest.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

GM2RN said:

Curious, why would being the sole earner for the family make any difference one way or the other? I know that many years ago employers used to use that as an excuse to pay men more, but why would that matter today?

The poster is in another country.

[Kinda Flustered]

Good lord so many whiny men crying about how they don't get paid more than women. Personally I don't even care about the wage gap much if we are solely looking at gender, but you guys are pissing your pants over nothing. Get a life and calm down lol.

[Kinda Flustered]

These kinds of graphs are honestly useless because they only talk about gender and not race. I am sure a white woman would make more money than a black man, and that a white man would make more than both a white woman and black man. Women of color probably make the least.

I am a white lady so I personally don't really feel discriminated against when it comes to the wage gap.

As for all of you saying men have better negotiation skills and that is why they make more: shut up. Why do you think white men have better negotiation skills? They sure weren't born with this skill. White men are encouraged to be bold while white women, women of color, and men of color are encouraged to be passive, and that we should be happy just to get a job offer. If we ask for more we feel greedy. I think this affects women of color the most. I also think it is a societal problem that we learn at birth.

And as for everyone saying that men and women make the same rates but men make more money because they work overtime: why do you think that is? After a child is born, the women is expected to cut back on her hours to be with her children. Obviously you can't work overtime then. A man is not expected to stay at home.

Shame on the white men in this thread who are so offended even by the suggestion that they may be making more money than everyone else.

Shame on us white women for ignoring the discrimination against nurses of color.

[Roy Hanson]

another yawn fest! I got paid as much as the RN beside me. Its seniority that counts. I have been there 14 years..The govt gives us beer money raises each year. Becareful of the overtime..raises your taxes.

[NurseAshlee1989]

I think if men in nursing make more money it is for the same reason men make more anywhere else. On a month per month basis, men make more due to the fact that they are able to put in more hours, OT, etc. Whereas women traditionally feel the need to get home and take care of their families and perhaps aren't able to put in the same hours. It would not be right for a man and woman who are both new grads on the same unit to make different wages obviously, but I can see how a man may move up to manager positions faster. And to be honest it doesn't bother me. I would not be mad at female nurse for making more money or moving up the ladder faster because she's able to put in more hours and time at work and I do not.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

NurseAshlee1989 said:

I think if men in nursing make more money it is for the same reason men make more anywhere else. On a month per month basis, men make more due to the fact that they are able to put in more hours, OT, etc. Whereas women traditionally feel the need to get home and take care of their families and perhaps aren't able to put in the same hours. It would not be right for a man and woman who are both new grads on the same unit to make different wages obviously, but I can see how a man may move up to manager positions faster. And to be honest it doesn't bother me. I would not be mad at female nurse for making more money or moving up the ladder faster because she's able to put in more hours and time at work and I do not.

And how do feel about men with less education and experience making more per hour than a female colleague who started the same day?

[NurseAshlee1989]

Hi there, and thank you for your comment.

No I don't think this would be fair at all. I don't think it would be fair if a nurse with 5 years experience made more PER HOUR than a new grad of any gender. Or if a nurse with 15 years experience made as much PER HOUR as a nurse with 4 years experience, again of any gender.

Thankfully this does not happen as wage where I work is based on experience and education and there are policies and laws that forbid wage discrepancies from happening. If it did occur, there would be grievances and a lot of very unhappy people, resulting in the oversight being rectified.