Gender pay gap ails nursing
Study shows men earn on average $6,600 a year more in industry women dominate
In the hospital room mockup, nursing students gather around a mannequin in the bed. A nearby instructor, working off a script, calls out symptoms as a monitor beeps and flashes vital signs.
Sixty-nine-year-old male. Post-surgical. Breathing hard and fast. Chest and leg pain. Blood pressure dangerously high. Patient in distress.
The aspiring nurses spring into action, working the drill efficiently, skillfully, collaboratively. One fixes an oxygen mask over the mannequin’s face. Another administers a blood thinner. Still another checks for comfort. Minutes later, the flashing blood pressure numbers on the monitor begin to tick down.
“And there it is,” the instructor announces in triumph as the students break into applause. “You saved his life, guys.”
There were eight female students and one male student in Room 480 on Friday afternoon at the Cizik School of Nursing on the Texas Medical Center campus, a telling divide as it roughly approximates the current gender split of nursing in this country.
While they are equal in the classroom, that changes when they get their first paycheck.
A new national nursing salary study contends that even in an industry that women have predominated for generations, male nurses earn more — sometimes significantly more — than their female colleagues for doing the same job.
Overall, across disciplines, male nurses pull down an average of $79,688 a year compared to an average $73,090 for female nurses — a difference of nearly $6,600.
The online survey of 4,520 nurses nationwide was controlled for education level, job description, length of time on the job and hours worked. The survey, conducted from April to June 2017 by Nurse.com, a division of the On Course Learning continuing education program, also screened for geography so that no region was overrepresented.
In all 4,126 women and 394 men responded, said lead author Jennifer Mensik, a 21-year registered nurse and researcher who holds a doctorate in nursing, health systems and public administration. The
participation split occurred naturally, she said, which matches up almost precisely with the 10 to 12 percent share of nurses who are male.
The National Salary Research Report is believed to be the first in-depth look at salary disparities in the nursing profession, with a sampling error of 1.5 percent.
Mesik was not really surprised by the findings considering the wage gap between men and women that’s often reported in other professions. But that does not mean she is not troubled by what is happening in her own profession.
“Gender bias alive and well,” she said. is
Equality only at the top
In nearly every job category and degree level, male nurses earn more than their female counterparts. For example, male staff registered nurses earned an average of $75,833 while woman earned $68,521. The pattern followed across job titles. Male nursing directors earned an average of $115,220 to $95,437 for women who held the same job — nearly a $20,000 difference. The gap was even greater among clinicians, typically those employed outside hospital settings, where men earned an average of $116,000 to $80,512 for women.
The exception came at the very top where women CEOs and chief operating officers vastly out-earned men, by an avergae of $59,000. Also, female women clinical nurse specialists made about $3,000 more on average per year than their make counterparts. Female nurses who owned businesses or were consultants also took home more than men in the same role.
Not everyone, though, was quick to conclusions.
Susan Rupert, assistant dean of the Cizik School of Nursing at UTHealth and a registered nurse, said she did not dispute that there might be some differences in pay. But she said the data could be misleading.
She expressed concern that the sampling size of men surveyed and other variables might have skewed the results. It may appear men make more, she said, when in fact they are doing more highly skilled jobs within a discipline or are in different circumstances than female nurses.
Patrick Laird, also a registered nurse and assistant professor at the nursing school, added that men often are better at negotiating salaries.
“A lot of men who are coming into nursing, it is a second career,” he said. If they came from other corporate backgrounds, they may come with skills at marketing themselves and be more focused on career advancement, which will lead them up the salary ladder, he said.
More men travel, negotiate
The survey showed, for instance, that men were more willing to travel farther for a job and tended to change jobs more frequently, which can mean higher salaries with each new job. Men also reported that they were more likely to negotiate a job offer to get a bigger paycheck.
Mensik, based in Oregon, is prepared for pushback against her study. “The data speaks for itself. What I find disheartening is people will try to discredit it. We have to stop excusing that there must be some other explanation than what it is.”
Her look at salary disparity in the health care field is not without precedent. Last year another group, Doximity, a San Francisco-based social media network for the medical profession, found in its physician compensation study that female doctors in Houston earned an average of $106,000 less than men doing the same job.
Doximity looked at physician salaries in major U.S. cities and didn’t find a single metro area where women were paid more than their male counterparts, said Chris Whaley, an adjunct assistant professor at the University of California-Berkeley School of Public Health and author of the 2017 study. The same held true for sub-specialties.
He said Friday that when his researchers examined physician pay, they also looked at the pay gap for nurse practitioners. Men in that profession earned $116,422 on average while women earned $104,963, he said.
“Nursing has always been a female-dominated profession, but it’s like as soon as a man wants to be a part of it, he’s automatically rewarded,” said an irritated Leah Meador, a 21-yearold Houston nursing student who took part in the class simulation at Cizik.
She had no doubt of the study’s accuracy.
The lone male student, Deodane Moreno, also sees unfairness. He is torn, though. Sure, he would welcome more pay but he does not see himself as superior to his female counterparts and is hard-pressed to explain the pay gap away.
“It can’t all be the heavy lifting” he said of the reasoning that today’s nurses need physical strength to do their jobs. He also isn’t buying that higher salary is a lure to bring more men into the profession.
A generational issue?
“We do the same thing and should be compensated the same,” Meador said.
“And recognized the same,” added Lauren Canales, another 21-year-old student in the class.
Elsewhere in the building, there was hope among nursing students that the problem was generational and theirs was the generation to fix it.
“Morally speaking, women should get paid for their skills,” said Chimtua Ogbah, a 31-yearold registered nurse who is seeking a master’s degree in acute care. He knows there is gender bias in other professions, but thought that in a female-dominated field, such bias would not apply.
Martha Salazar, a 27-year-old nursing student from McAllen, is ready to fight for equal pay.
“We’re not going to put up with this,” she said.