The Wage Gap Myth

[car48]

Not trying to start a gender war here, but would like to get someone to defend the idea that there is a wage gap. This video pretty much sums up why there isn't one to me:

It is all about personal choice of the individual. If you make an apples to apples comparison of a man and a woman who make the same life choices, but there is a statistically significant difference in pay I will be all on board for correcting it. But I am a male in my mid 40's who just graduated and started working in nursing. Regardless of the reason I got into nursing so late (other prof., taking care of kids, whatever), I do not deserve, nor am I entitled to making the same $ as a female (or male) nurse who has been in the workforce for 2 decades.

Other life decisions count too. For example:

Male Nursing Statistics | Fastaff Travel Nursing

Highlights from this are:

• While 3.2 million (91 percent) nurses are female, only 330,000 (9 percent) are male.
• Men are best represented among nurse anesthetists. In 2011, 41 percent of nurse anesthetists are male.

So for the highest paid nursing job men represent more than 4x their general number. In addition to that Men make up 24% of the NPs.

Going further, men statistically take off less time from work, and work more overtime. You can chalk that up to child care if you like, but that is a decision made by the mother and father. There is no way to legislate that, nor should there be.

I do not buy the societal pressures argument either. My wife supported me when I went to nursing school... so what. That is what we decided. Nobody is putting a gun to anyone head saying what they can or can not do. Hell, I just had someone ask me last week "so what do they call a male nurse?"

[Mushroomprint]

No wage gap at the Veteran Affairs. All nurses seem to be at the mercy of the nursing board for pay.

[10GaugeNeedles, BSN]

There is no wage gap. It's all in the statistics. Men don't usually take off for paternity. Women tend to have more priorities than work. Men tend to prioritize work about most else. But there's no wide spread sex based discrimination against women. Perhaps true in the past, and mainly cause women weren't considered for many jobs back then and men were considered to be the bread winner and this given priority. Yes you could argue it was sexism (or infantilism it cultural, not fair, and yes it wasn't fair back then, it was a different time). But why are we trying to pretend these problems haven't been fixed? I had a lower base than every female counter part. But I made more than them because I worked a ton of over time. Now I'm in travel and take the biggest contract pay number on offer through my recruiter. There is no gender of gap. There are pay DIFFERENCES, but it's not specifically because of gender. This entire debate is a correlation causation fallacy and is motivate by politics.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

3 hours ago, 10GaugeNeedles said:

There is no wage gap. It's all in the statistics. Men don't usually take off for paternity. Women tend to have more priorities than work. Men tend to prioritize work about most else. But there's no wide spread sex based discrimination against women. Perhaps true in the past, and mainly cause women weren't considered for many jobs back then and men were considered to be the bread winner and this given priority. Yes you could argue it was sexism (or infantilism it cultural, not fair, and yes it wasn't fair back then, it was a different time). But why are we trying to pretend these problems haven't been fixed? I had a lower base than every female counter part. But I made more than them because I worked a ton of over time. Now I'm in travel and take the biggest contract pay number on offer through my recruiter. There is no gender of gap. There are pay DIFFERENCES, but it's not specifically because of gender. This entire debate is a correlation causation fallacy and is motivate by politics.

These problems haven't been fixed.  It was sexism, it was not fair, and these problems still have not been fixed.  I've been a nurse for decades; I've been married to two nurses.  I saw the pay stubs, the hourly rates.  I had more experience, more education, more experience in the specialty and was published -- and I still got paid a lower hourly rate.  Every one of those merit increases, based on percentage of your hourly rate, widened the gap even further.  

Why are we pretending these problems HAVE been fixed?  I get it.  Somebody doesn't wish to lose their white male privilege.

[10GaugeNeedles, BSN]

1 hour ago, Ruby Vee said:

These problems haven't been fixed.  It was sexism, it was not fair, and these problems still have not been fixed.  I've been a nurse for decades; I've been married to two nurses.  I saw the pay stubs, the hourly rates.  I had more experience, more education, more experience in the specialty and was published -- and I still got paid a lower hourly rate.  Every one of those merit increases, based on percentage of your hourly rate, widened the gap even further.  

Why are we pretending these problems HAVE been fixed?  I get it.  Somebody doesn't wish to lose their white male privilege.

Then why was I getting paid l a lower rate than every one of my female coworkers? I am a male. I should have been getting paid more than them. I was getting less. Why?

[BeatsPerMinute, BSN, RN]

just following 

 

[Orion81RN]

On 10/10/2021 at 7:00 PM, 10GaugeNeedles said:

Then why was I getting paid l a lower rate than every one of my female coworkers? I am a male. I should have been getting paid more than them. I was getting less. Why?

Why should we put any more weight to your lived experience than anyone else here? Especially a woman’s? 

Woman: This is my reality

Man: No, that’s not your reality because this is my experience, so mine is right. 

 

See how dumb that sounds? And oh, I don’t know…misogynistic. 

[InHisImage, BSN]

On 1/29/2019 at 4:50 PM, AbbyLane said:

 I'm not going to act like that doesn't happen but today that is no where near the norm and atypical and also illegal. 

It’s also illegal to discriminate based on gender, race, age, physical appearance, etc., but it happens all the time and employers mostly get away with it because they know how to disguise it so that it’s impossible to prove.  I have experienced it personally.  I have also had a way less qualified man hired instead of me.  I would love to tell the story but I can’t risk giving any details.

[zoidberg, BSN, RN]

On 5/21/2020 at 1:47 PM, Link648099 said:

1: Men are less drama. I've had plenty of female nurses tell me as much. As a male charge nurse, I don't get HALF the drama even from my "problem" male staff as I do my female staff. To people who do the hiring and firing, that's worth something. I LOVE women but would prefer working with men.

Whoa there. Who will answer the phones and file papers if its only us guys ?

Seriously though, its about having a mix of different people and backgrounds to make a team able to connect with and provide care to a diverse population, not about being able to bro out all day. 

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

On 10/23/2021 at 2:54 PM, Orion81RN said:

Why should we put any more weight to your lived experience than anyone else here? Especially a woman’s? 

Woman: This is my reality

Man: No, that’s not your reality because this is my experience, so mine is right. 

See how dumb that sounds? And oh, I don’t know…misogynistic. 

Wish I could "Like" this a few hundred times.

 

[offlabel]

A defining element of nursing (been one for over 30 years) mindset, unfortunately, is committing the fallacy of Composition which assumes what is true of the parts is true of the whole. Compounding that is then, when the error is pointed out, becoming toxic and using pejorative phrases that do not move the conversation along (ie, white, male privilege)

At the end of the day, anecdotes, narratives and agendas do not tell the true story. They're a small part of it, to be sure, but the more broad data sets are, the more they can be treated objectively.

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, but, to play along, I wouldn't promote someone prone to name calling either. 

[summertx]

On 1/23/2019 at 11:26 PM, zoidberg said:

As I guy, I get treated differently. By my fellow (female) nurses, by my manager (who gives me my raises yearly), by physicians, and so on. I avoid drama, get made charge nurse before equally/more qualified female nurses, I could go on. 

Men are more respected. I don't have a problem with that, I just don't care. Way it is?  This is why I don't work full  time anywhere. I make my own schedule, work when I want. If I don't have to  put up with inequality, I simply don't. That's the joy of being in nursing. When they call me  begging me to work, sorry, I'm out enjoying my day. So yeah, there's inequality, oh well. But men are not that bad, they are easy to work with. 

[DiverDadBrad, ASN, BSN, RN]

I am new to nursing myself, having spent 20+ years as an oil field deep-sea diver.  Overall, men seem to make more at my facility.  One thing I noticed when interviewing and when discussing the hiring process with my cohort, was that the men at my facility and my school were better prepared for wage negotiation, having researched the pay matrix and highlighting experience that would help the initial salary, whereas the women were more interested in the personal and connection side of the interview.  Not a single woman from my class was aware of the pay, pay matrix, or benefits being offered ahead of time, but every man was.  I also know that I make more than most with the same experience because I did not accept the initial offer, counterproposing, and getting about 8% more.  I don't know if this holds true everywhere, but from my personal experience men are more likely to ask for more, request raises, change positions for pay, etc. than women.