In the female-dominated field of nursing, men are still bringing home the larger paychecks.
A recent study revealed that male nurses out-earned female nurses by more than $5,000 on average per year, with no narrowing of the pay gap over the last 25 years.
“This is not information that should be taken lightly or dismissed,” said Debra Barksdale, professor and director of the Doctor of Nursing Practice program. “This is information that the nursing profession needs to take a good hard look at.”
Male nurses were paid $70,000 on average in 2013 versus $60,000 for women. The study showed a range of income disparities depending on specializations within the field, but a gap existed in every specialization except for orthopedics.
The largest gap, for nurse anesthetists, was approximately $17,000 per year.
Barksdale said this study was important in quantifying an assumption many professionals in the field already had.
“For many years there had been talk of a discrepancy between the pay of male and female nurses but nothing of this scale,” she said.
Of the 333 undergraduate students currently enrolled in the School of Nursing, 44 are male. This includes students in the six-semester Bachelor of Science in Nursing option and the four-semester Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing option, said Carlee Meritt, assistant director for undergraduate admissions in the School of Nursing, in an email.
Nursing is the largest profession in the health care industry, and about 2.5 million women are affected by this pay inequality, according to the study. Men account for less than 10 percent of registered nurses as of 2013.
