Is a male nurse worth $5,148 more than a female nurse?

[cali]

Stark illustration of the wage gap.


For nurses, it pays to be a man.

Registered nurses who are male earn nearly $11,000 more per year than RNs who are female, new research shows. Only about half of that difference can be explained by factors like education, work experience and clinical specialty.

That leaves a $5,148 salary gap that effectively discriminates against women, who make up the vast majority of the nursing workforce, according to a study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.

Approximately 2.5 million women — and the families they support — are being shortchanged by the gender-based pay difference, say the researchers who conducted the study.

“Given the large numbers of women employed in nursing, gender pay differences affect a sizable part of the population,” said study leader Ulrike Muench, a nurse practitioner with a PhD from Yale who studies nursing, health policy and health care economics at UC San Francisco.

<snip>

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-male-nurses-make-more-than-women-20150323-story.html

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Male nurses are great, fun to work with and all of that.

But they are not worth $5148 more per year than any female nurse.

[Blue Meany]

21. I'd like to know if there is a difference in average hours.

This is a critical issues that is often left out of gender comparisons. Men tend to work more hours at work then women, just as women tend to put in more hours at home. Naturally this affects salary, though I do not know if this explains the difference.

[SwissTony]

22. Would it be possible to compare the hourly rate for males and females in the same "classification"?

ie. in terms of seniority, which, hopefully, would reflect training, experience etc.

[Cerridwen]

26. Again, I will just copy and paste my reply below:

Even after the researchers accounted for things like location, years of experience and type of nursing degree, men still earned $5,148 more than women, on average.

For some nursing specialties, the gap was even greater. In cardiology, for instance, male RNs earned $6,034 more than their female counterparts. Only one specialty — orthopedics — had a pay gap too small to be statistically significant, meaning that the difference might have been due to chance.

Workplace mattered too. Nurses who cared for hospital patients took home $3,873 more per year if they were men, according to the study. In outpatient settings, men earned $7,678 more than women.

The researchers also found significant differences according to job type. The most extreme disparity was seen among nurse anesthetists, who were paid $17,290 more if they were men than if they were women. However, women who were in senior academic positions had slightly bigger paychecks than their male counterparts. (This difference was too small to be considered statistically significant.)

[AllyCat]

45. We have a union and pay is in the open

And rates are the same. For the non-union RNs, who knows.

[Cerridwen]

47. That is a good argument for a unionized workforce. n/t

[ND-Dem]

134. Yes, and it's pretty common. I'd like to know where the numbers come from.

unfortunately, though I haven't read *any* la times stories recently, it tells me I've read five and can't read this one.

I don't believe it.

[SheilaT]

23. All too often the gap exists even when everything is exactly the same:

hours, education, experience, and so on.

I really do get tired of the wage difference being explained away be average hours and other stuff, when, once again, where everything is equal men are still paid more unless it is a job with a set pay scale that everyone earns, regardless of gender.

[uponit7771]

50. +1

[catrose]

87. All female nurses I know

Regularly work double shifts and hideous amounts of overtime, planned and unplanned. I can't imagine that the men work more.

Pretty tired of these "explanations" too.

[uponit7771]

136. +1

[Cerridwen]

25. I'm just going to copy and paste my post below:

Even after the researchers accounted for things like location, years of experience and type of nursing degree, men still earned $5,148 more than women, on average.

For some nursing specialties, the gap was even greater. In cardiology, for instance, male RNs earned $6,034 more than their female counterparts. Only one specialty — orthopedics — had a pay gap too small to be statistically significant, meaning that the difference might have been due to chance.

Workplace mattered too. Nurses who cared for hospital patients took home $3,873 more per year if they were men, according to the study. In outpatient settings, men earned $7,678 more than women.

The researchers also found significant differences according to job type. The most extreme disparity was seen among nurse anesthetists, who were paid $17,290 more if they were men than if they were women. However, women who were in senior academic positions had slightly bigger paychecks than their male counterparts. (This difference was too small to be considered statistically significant.)

[CreekDog]

37. the study was limited to nurses working 35 or more hours per week

and 50 or more weeks per year.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

39. I don't know about that.

I knew some male nurses who worked many OT hours, but so did female nurses. I don't have any data on this, and it's a good question.

[Gormy Cuss]

65. No, it isn't in this case.

See Cerridwen's and Creek Dog's posts. The researchers had the data and were controlling for it.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

66. Thanks!

[econoclast]

78. Actually, they don't mention hours worked

They indicate they controlled for specialty, location, and education. No mention of hours worked. And they quote differences in terms of annual earnings, not hourly wages.

So maybe they don't have information about actual hours worked. Just that they are more than 35 hours a week.

One would think that if women were earning about 2.50 an hour less than similarly qualified men, and it was widespread, there would be lawsuits aplenty.

[Cerridwen]

84. It's listed at the link to the study which was included in the article:

Adjusted Male and Female Salary Differences by Work Setting, Clinical Specialty, and Job Position From NSSRN 1988-2008

Data are from the National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses (NSSRN). Ordinary least-squares regression was used for the model, which included gender (male, female), age, race (white, nonwhite), marital status (married, divorced or widowed, never married), children at home (yes, no), foreign education (yes, no), education (diploma, associate’s degree, bachelor’s degree, master’s or doctorate degree), hours worked per week, years since graduation, polynomial of second degree and years since graduation, Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) (in MSA, not in MSA), state (51 categories), survey year (1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008), work setting (hospital, ambulatory, other), clinical specialty (orthopedics, medical or surgical, neurology, newborn or pediatrics, chronic care, psychiatry, cardiology, other), job position (staff nurse, advanced clinical nurse, nurse anesthetist, education/research, senior academic, middle management, senior administration, other), and interaction terms of gender with work setting, clinical specialty, job position, and survey year. All continuous variables were mean centered. This model accounted for about half of the variance in salaries (R2?=?0.46). The estimated average salary gap was $5148. Orthopedics was the only nonsignificant clinical specialty. Senior academic was the only nonsignificant job position. Survey weights were applied to make results nationally representative. Salary amounts reflect 2013 dollars and were normalized using the consumer price index. Error bars indicate 95% confidence intervals.

Emphasis added.

The additional variables were alluded to in the article:

Even after the researchers accounted for things like location, years of experience and type of nursing degree, men still earned $5,148 more than women, on average.

Emphasis added.

[Gormy Cuss]

85. The first page of the JAMA article mentions work hours explicitly as a controlled factor. n/t

[uponit7771]

48. Men do not tend to work more hours than women at every profession

[SharonAnn]

126. In my experience, men don't work more hours than women at all.

Granted, that's anecdotal evidence, but the women I've worked with always worked more hours than the men. Even the women with families and children to care for.

And yet, my male coworkers used to say that women worked fewer hours. When I called them on it and pointed out the facts, they always said, "Well, that's different".

Prejudice is alive and well, still.

I really thought,50 years ago (even 25 years ago) that we would've made more progress by now.

[TM99]

127. Unfortunately

your experience does not jive with the research.

Numerous studies since the 1970's have shown that men do indeed work more hours than women. One prominent one in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that young male physicians worked 500 hours more a year than young female physicians.

[uponit7771]

135. Not in every profession... There's no research that says that

[TM99]

145. Which is equally true for the claim

being made here that all women make less than all men in all professions.

[uppityperson]

131. I've worked with great ones, mediocre and crap male nurses. Female nurses too.

Some work hard, some are slackers. Some easy to get along with, others drama drama drama.

It all depends but I do agree, they are not worth more.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

2. I'd work my first year for minimum if anybody is ever willing to hire me.

But every place I've applied already has set salaries - they can't hire me in at anything other than their standard set wage for all new nurses.

[kiva]

3. I went to a Women's Leadership Conference

last year and one of the female executives (mid-30s) there opined that we didn't need to worry about gender differences in the workplace any more, that the young people that worked at her corporation (people in their 20s) saw gender equality as a done deal. Studies like this need more exposure, because ignoring a problem or not recognizing that it exists does not make it go away.

[seabeyond]

4. i heard an MRA argue to pay male teachers more to draw them into the field since it was too

saturated with women.

[whathehell]

5. No, and HELL no. n/t

[niyad]

6. NO

[Orrex]

7. Is this a side-by-side comparison of male and female nurses at the same facilities?

Or is it an industry-wide summary?

[LanternWaste]

8. Seven sentences into the story and we come across this

Seven sentences into the story and we come across this, "Muench and her colleagues examined two decades’ worth of salary information from the National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses. Before the survey ended in 2008, it collected data once every four years from more than 30,000 RNs across the country...."

[Orrex]

10. Rhetorical question is rhetorical

More specifically, does the study address and account for variances in geographic distribution of male vs. female nurses, since these have a direct and considerable impact on financial reality?

If so, how does the study address and account for these variances?

[Sunlei]

143. survey ended in 2008. 30,000 RNs all Am. citizens? or does survey include foreign visa RNs?

would like to see a list of the top 500 American hospitals and the pay scale for their medical personnel. A breakdown between 'for profit' and non-profit hospitals.

$5,000 isn't much difference when that's the pay that could be earned in a double shift week.

[Cerridwen]

9. Yes. From the link in the OP:

Even after the researchers accounted for things like location, years of experience and type of nursing degree, men still earned $5,148 more than women, on average.

For some nursing specialties, the gap was even greater. In cardiology, for instance, male RNs earned $6,034 more than their female counterparts. Only one specialty — orthopedics — had a pay gap too small to be statistically significant, meaning that the difference might have been due to chance.

Workplace mattered too. Nurses who cared for hospital patients took home $3,873 more per year if they were men, according to the study. In outpatient settings, men earned $7,678 more than women.

The researchers also found significant differences according to job type. The most extreme disparity was seen among nurse anesthetists, who were paid $17,290 more if they were men than if they were women. However, women who were in senior academic positions had slightly bigger paychecks than their male counterparts. (This difference was too small to be considered statistically significant.)

[Orrex]

11. That's what I needed--thanks.

Can't get to the article in my browser--sends me to a "sorry, update your browser" pop-up and stops me there.

Even after the researchers accounted for things like location, years of experience and type of nursing degree, men still earned $5,148 more than women, on average.

I'd be interested to see the methodology by which they account for these factors, but I see no reason to doubt their findings.

Thanks!

[Gormy Cuss]

71. There's probably a methodological report out there somewhere.

It may be behind a pay wall but good research always has a full methodology description available.

[IBEWVET]

12. Where I worked pay was by job

Men and women it made no difference in hourly rate, now yearly amount could differ depending on attendance. As we know women bear the brunt of family obligations which could explain some of the difference. But as a union workplace same job same pay.

[City Lights]

13. Nope. nt

[B Calm]

14. It's not right! I don't look for this congress to address this problem anytime in the near future!

[strawberries]

15. maybe they have been working longer

therefor worth more in experience. Could that be possible? With that said I know a few female nurses who are making 6 figures, but they have been in the field for 30 years now.

Just curious

[Cerridwen]

16. See post #9. n/t

[heaven05]

17. no

[closeupready]

18. If they're better, yes.

[strawberries]

67. Good point

we don't know the circumstances of each individual. There is shift differential, some nurses specialize in certain fields. Emergency rooms vs Dr. office

[spooky3]

70. The study controlled for those factors.

Read the article.

[bettyellen]

73. You didn't even read the excerpts posted here- they explain that your

Assumptions are all incorrect.

[strawberries]

89. until I know who "they" are

and where and how "they" got their statistics I will question the data.

I have yet to see a professional job that says Nurse or IT person needed. male 75K female 70K.

Usually when there is a job offer they have a salary based on experience, education, location, shift so many factors involved and genitals is not one of them.

[bettyellen]

109. Ha ha- you think employers are going to get themselves sued by advertising different salaries for

Men and women? Seriously?
Oh dear, that is fucking hilarious.

[valerief]

20. Penises don't come cheap. Except on certain street corners. nt

[strawberries]

91. lol nt

[lumberjack_jeff]

24. What the article describes has been against the law since 1964.

Occam's razor suggests that factors like hours worked (men tend to work more overtime) explain much of it.

The actual article is behind a paywall, but it seems male salaries are based on a sample size of only 7% of the study participants.

[Cerridwen]

28. Again, I'm just going to copy and paste my reply #9:

Even after the researchers accounted for things like location, years of experience and type of nursing degree, men still earned $5,148 more than women, on average.

For some nursing specialties, the gap was even greater. In cardiology, for instance, male RNs earned $6,034 more than their female counterparts. Only one specialty — orthopedics — had a pay gap too small to be statistically significant, meaning that the difference might have been due to chance.

Workplace mattered too. Nurses who cared for hospital patients took home $3,873 more per year if they were men, according to the study. In outpatient settings, men earned $7,678 more than women.

The researchers also found significant differences according to job type. The most extreme disparity was seen among nurse anesthetists, who were paid $17,290 more if they were men than if they were women. However, women who were in senior academic positions had slightly bigger paychecks than their male counterparts. (This difference was too small to be considered statistically significant.)

[lumberjack_jeff]

30. Did you know that left-handed college educated men make 15% more than right handed ones?

http://krieger2.jhu.edu/economics/wp-content/uploads/pdf/papers/wp533harrington

[closeupready]

32. And are WAY over-represented in terms of those who occupied the Oval Office -

Nota Bene, lol.

[cali]

79. disgusting and so predictable.

You continue to find any excuse to explain away sexism and misogyny. Frankly, I don't know why you're still here.

[lumberjack_jeff]

93. The left-hand right-hand salary survey has the same fundamental limitation as the one in the op

Sample size. Men in the survey were only 7% of the respondents.

[DanTex]

31. That's not what the data says.

Hours worked were adjusted for, along with a number of other factors, including experience, specialty, etc.

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2208795

Also, while only 7% of the sample were men, that came to 6073 men, because the sample size for the whole study was very large, and the total number, not the percentage, is what matters when computing sample variance and confidence intervals.. The results were significant to P<0.001.

I'm not sure why you are looking for reasons not to believe this. But you're not doing a very good job of it.

[lumberjack_jeff]

36. Yes. I question the improbable.

I don't believe that there's an industry-wide conspiracy to break the law. I have a nephew who is an RN, and I do know that he makes big bucks because he always volunteers to cover other shifts.

I don't have access to JAMA, but other similar studies describe "over 35 hours" as "full time" and compares the person working 60 hours with the person working 36 as equivalent. They also use salary instead of hourly wage as the basis.

If the JAMA survey doesn't include average hourly wage as one of the figures, it's not a study, it's advocacy.

[DanTex]

40. There doesn't have to be an industry-wide conspiracy.

All that is required is de facto discrimination. Which, is not only entirely plausible, but highly likely.

Again, the study adjusted for hours worked. 35 hours was the cutoff to be included in the study. The number of hours worked was an additional factor that went into the regression and was adjusted for. So 35 hours and 60 hours would not have been considered equivalent.

[trumad]

81. You're not going to convince that guy...

His whole motto is that this kind of thing is a myth.

[CreekDog]

88. if only it was limited to that

lumberjack_jeff (29,576 posts)
99. Why do women seek low paying careers?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4243839

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4758433

on the other hand, I do agree with him on "performance art":

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3791354

[lumberjack_jeff]

96. Your collection of bookmarks labeled "enemies of CD" must be impressive. n/t

[CreekDog]

97. No, I don't have any threads bookmarked

I don't have lists.

I don't have enemies.

Just a bit of a BS detector.

[CreekDog]

43. It seems like you question anything that shows that women are treated unfairly

Which is totally inconsistent with being progressive or liberal.

[cali]

82. no kiddling. ALWAYS.

[trumad]

83. And I mean always...

Any---and I mean any time there is an Op relating to gender equality---he'll come runnin to make sure we all know that everything is perfectly equal.

Clockwork at it's finest.

[cali]

86. the question is: why is that OK on DU?

[lumberjack_jeff]

94. If you find disagreement intolerable, there's always ignore. n/t

[trumad]

95. there are maybe 5 on DU...

that enter these types of threads pretty much every time.

Really kind of weird.

[CreekDog]

122. Except when he says women have the advantage

Based on his posts he seems to think men are the victims mostly.

[bettyellen]

128. Because guys buy us drinks, lol! What more could we want?

[smirkymonkey]

121. Everything! Never fails!

[uponit7771]

55. Yes there is an industry wide conspiracy and who cares about a law that no one will enforce?

The judges are male

Despicable and totaly predictably human

[bettyellen]

75. Yep! And the Ledbetter act is toothless.

[CreekDog]

35. so basically you're saying that women are supposed to be paid less than men

[lumberjack_jeff]

38. Do you have any experience building things other than strawmen? n/t

[seabeyond]

42. didnt you argue, that male teachers should be offered more than women teachers,

because the field is saturated with women teachers and it is vital our boys get elementary men teachers. so if that means paying them more to draw them in the field, then that should be the answer?

[AllyCat]

54. I wonder if l_j would agree that all teachers should be paid more

To attract he best of all applicants?

[lumberjack_jeff]

99. The president just promised $240 million to encourage women to become engineers.

Elementary education is dominated by women to roughly the same degree that engineering is dominated by men (80:20). Why would a similar approach in encouraging men in primary education be wrong?

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/03/23/fact-sheet-president-obama-announces-over-240-million-new-stem-commitmen

[seabeyond]

100. then you do advocate men get paid a higher wage in teaching than women teachers.

[lumberjack_jeff]

108. No. Care to reciprocate by answering my question? n/t

[CreekDog]

110. yes, but the President didn't pledge $240 million to pay female engineers more than men

but nice try.

we see what you did there.

to you, it's a zero sum game and you'll argue against any mass of data with one tiny piece to say that males are disadvantaged compared to females.

it's what you've been posting.

[CreekDog]

44. at least you didn't ask if I had a learning disability this time

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4759382

[lumberjack_jeff]

60. That question has been answered to my satisfaction. n/t

[CreekDog]

80. to your "satisfaction"?

well, how has it been answered?

[kcr]

51. Does Occam's razor suggest that men never break the law?

If not, then how does the rest of your theory work?

[lumberjack_jeff]

58. Does Occam's razor suggest that nursing supervisors are men? n/t

[LanternWaste]

101. Occam's Razor seems to suggest you're reaching to the point of irrational absurdity.

Occam's Razor seems to suggest you're reaching to the point of an irrational absurdity in order to validate your bias.

[kcr]

105. What does it matter what gender the supervisors are?

I'm picturing this same logic working in other scenarios. "Your honor and members of the jury. Murder is against the law, so other causes of death are more likely and therefore my client is not guilty due to reasonable doubt!"

[lumberjack_jeff]

112. Then whom did you have in mind when you said "men breaking the law"?

If not the person deciding pay scales and schedule, it's hard to imagine what you're talking about.

Are you suggesting that earning more money than a co-worker is against the law?

[kcr]

123. Now why would I have had men in mind at that time during that conversation with you?

I'd think someone who'd likes to use Occam's Razor would have no problem with that one.

[lumberjack_jeff]

124. "Does Occam's razor suggest that men never break the law?"

In the context of this thread, which men do you believe are breaking the law? Presumably the nursing supervisors, right?

I'm not sure I can type this any clearer without pictures.

[kcr]

144. It isn't the context of the thread.

It's the context that I was responding to a man who runs The Men's Group claims Occam's Razor to explain men making moremoney as nurses because it's against the law to discriminate against women.

[CreekDog]

111. I think if you discovered that there were more pens on average on female desks

than on the desks of men.

that you'd use that to say that men are on the lower side of gender equality.

[lumberjack_jeff]

113. Projection. n/t

[CreekDog]

114. What you've written over the years is a pretty good guide to what you will write

or what you would write in a given situation.

besides, you keep proving me right!

[lumberjack_jeff]

116. I do often say the same things.

Those things are almost never even approximately similar to your caricature of them.

For a person with such a voluminous dossier of everyone else, you have a really hard time following the dialog.

[CreekDog]

117. I'm following the dialogue to the letter, and then providing context

and if you feel you've been quoted out of context:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023943768

don't complain to me for bringing up your posts, if they make you look bad, then why did you post them?

[lumberjack_jeff]

118. I don't mind you linking to my posts at all.

I do mind when you attempt to paraphrase them so poorly... or throw a bunch of unrelated posts into the pile hoping that readers won't actually read them to attempt to discern what makes them so... *gasp*... controversial.

But we've all figured out that it's just how you roll.

[CreekDog]

120. No, I hope they read what you've posted and see it for what it is

it's the equivalent of denying climate change, that is denying that women on balance are disadvantaged in this society compared to men.

you cherry pick data which you claim proves that is in fact men who are disadvantaged.

[uponit7771]

57. Or even simpler than those factors is people are breaking the law & no one is going to hold them ...

.. responsible so they keep breaking the law.

right?

tia

[bettyellen]

130. Ha ha ha. And no one at walks, smokes pot or cheats on taxesin this fantasy world where

People don't break every friggen law they can.
Ridiculous!

[matt819]

27. Follow the money

If those 2.5 million female nurses were paid an additional $5,148 per year, the cost to their employers would be an additional $12,870,000,000. That's more than $12 billion not going to executives, shareholders, etc. Can't have that, can we?

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

106. Most nursing administration jobs are held by women

so I don't think that women are "favoring" male nurses.

The fact is that male registered nurses account for less than 10% of all RNs. The difference in pay is very likely due to supply and demand and hospitals paying more to attract the males who are available. Having worked in a hospital, I can say that it's nice to have men around - men who are "generally" stronger. They are especially helpful in the ER with the occasional out-of-control patient. If you really want to hire someone, you offer them more money than the competitor. That's just how it works.

If men are still being paid more when their numbers greatly increase, then I would say that is a definite problem. Right now, the law of supply and demand is at work.

[Runningdawg]

29. I am a retired F RN

not that I think it is fair, but M RNs make more money because the boss knows HE won't be calling in if there is a sick child. HE won't ask to leave early to go have a fertility treatment. HE won't spend extra time pumping breast milk in the locker room. HE won't need maternity leave...you get the idea. This isn't news, in fact the gap was much wider when M first started working as nurses.

[Maedhros]

102. Note the inherit irony in the fact that those that defend or deny the wage gap

also claim to support "family values."

Hard to see how they can do that when they advocate punishing women for being good mothers.

[MADem]

33. Yes, absolutely!!!!

IF the male nurse puts in $5,148 more work/hours than his female counterpart, that is.

Otherwise, hell to the no.

[hamsterjill]

34. No.

Frankly, I'm shocked to be on a democratic discussion board and see all of the "explanations" of how this could be okay.

IT IS NOT OKAY. We are in the 15th year of the new millennium and equal pay for equal work is still something that we have to discuss? It should have become a non issue years ago!

[BeanMusical]

52. +1000

[treestar]

69. Agreed. It is simply appalling that it is true in a profession

traditionally female, too! They make more even then.

[uponit7771]

137. +1

[Telcontar]

41. How was data analyzed?

Male nurses typically gravitate toward ER, trauma, surgical, and ICU nursing. All those come with higher pay, bonuses, and shift differential. Was this taken in account or are they comparing anyone with an RN?

[Cerridwen]

56. In case you can't read the article which answers your question, (edited)

see post #9 or #25 or #26 and post #31 has information not repeated in posts #9, #25, and #26.

eta: "can't" read it as in you're getting an error or some such when you try to click the link.

[ileus]

46. Most our male nurses are in management positions.

[Cerridwen]

76. Also accounted for in the study. Link from article in OP:

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2208795

Adjusted Male and Female Salary Differences by Work Setting, Clinical Specialty, and Job Position From NSSRN 1988-2008

Data are from the National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses (NSSRN). Ordinary least-squares regression was used for the model, which included gender (male, female), age, race (white, nonwhite), marital status (married, divorced or widowed, never married), children at home (yes, no), foreign education (yes, no), education (diploma, associate’s degree, bachelor’s degree, master’s or doctorate degree), hours worked per week, years since graduation, polynomial of second degree and years since graduation, Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) (in MSA, not in MSA), state (51 categories), survey year (1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008), work setting (hospital, ambulatory, other), clinical specialty (orthopedics, medical or surgical, neurology, newborn or pediatrics, chronic care, psychiatry, cardiology, other), job position (staff nurse, advanced clinical nurse, nurse anesthetist, education/research, senior academic, middle management, senior administration, other), and interaction terms of gender with work setting, clinical specialty, job position, and survey year. All continuous variables were mean centered. This model accounted for about half of the variance in salaries (R2?=?0.46). The estimated average salary gap was $5148. Orthopedics was the only nonsignificant clinical specialty. Senior academic was the only nonsignificant job position. Survey weights were applied to make results nationally representative. Salary amounts reflect 2013 dollars and were normalized using the consumer price index. Error bars indicate 95% confidence intervals.

Emphasis added.

[CreekDog]

98. well that explains it then!

the same goes for CEO's.

most CEO's are men, so it makes sense that women are paid less. they just need to apply for more CEO positions!

[BeanMusical]

49. Nope.

[Beaverhausen]

53. My husband is a nurse

He makes the same as the others at his registry. I guess hospitals might pay differently though.

He tries to work OT so he can make more money. But it sounds like that was accounted for in this study.

[tammywammy]

72. I wonder if the standardized pay scale was incorporated over the years this study looked at.

Where now it's standardized, but previously not.

At the same time, I work on a standardized pay scale, meaning everyone in my position is paid within a specific range, but there can be a large variation within the scale. For instance, a new hire will start at the bottom of the scale, and even if there are two people hired at the same time their annual performance rating determines the raises.

So if John and I start at the same time and both are the bottom of the pay scale, but I do more work throughout the year (which on my team we all have the same goals) but say I work in contracts and I'm a better negotiator and close more deals or close deals quicker than John, I'd be a higher performer. I would get a larger percentage raise over him. Even if it's a 1% difference the accumulative results would be a significant pay difference over time.

[Cleita]

59. The only reason I can think of where they outperform women nurses is

the bigger ones might have the ability to lift heavy patients and equipment more than the women but I don't know if that is worth such a discrimination in pay.

[uponit7771]

61. ... or women overall are paid less because people who do the hiring can pay them less. There's no

... enforcement of equal pay laws

[Cleita]

63. Sure they should get equal pay. That wasn't my point.

However, my post is in the spirit of the many excuses I used to get as to why I wasn't getting equal pay to the boys. Tops among those were that men had to support families and secondly that they were bigger and stronger, able to lift things I couldn't, that they had more endurance. Of course it was all bull shit. My retort to the boss was, "the next time you are pregnant and deliver a baby tell me again all about that strength and endurance thing." Also, women support families too. In my case it was elderly parents.

[uponit7771]

140. I agree, there are few if any categories the male nurses should get paid more

[samsingh]

62. no

[ZombieHorde]

64. I work in health care and there is a pro-male bias.

The average man can pick up people the average woman cannot pick up. If the health care facility is picking people up on a regular basis, then people are going to want some men on the floor. There are other ways of doing it, such as Hoyer lifts, but raw strength is fast and easy. This doesn't mean men deserve more money, and I'm not saying this explains the whole situation, but it is a real part of the bias.

[closeupready]

77. Wait - are you arguing that if men are required to physically lift in situations where women AREN'T,

then DESPITE that lighter work load, a pay differential on that basis would still be unfair discrimination?

I can't agree with that.

[ZombieHorde]

133. On paper everyone has the same job description.

Everyone has the same requirements, but men and women have different advantages. For example, many women only want a woman doing personal care, such as assisting with a shower. Since women generally live longer than men, nursing homes/retirement homes are mostly women, so having women on the floor is very important, but there seems to be many more women than men in that line of work, so the advantages men have are more scarce.

[alarimer]

104. In which case, they might well be paying them more.

Not sure how many nurses are unionized, but if there is no union, men might also be more willing to ask for raises, or threaten to walk if they don't get a raise.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

107. Exactly my point above

The few male nurses available for hire (less than 10%) can simply compete for more money. Male RN get the phone call, gets offered the job, and "x" amount of money, and asks for more. There are five female applicants behind him. It would make sense to pay the female less, and save the hospital some money, but in order to get the male RN, the hospital offers him a higher starting pay.

Supply and demand does not always seem fair, but it's not always outright bias and discrimination, imo. It's usually female RNs in charge of hiring. Are they biased against female nurses?

[Nye Bevan]

68. Only if his name is Gaylord Focker (nt)

[joeybee12]

74. I'm trying to find a photo of Harvey Korman as a nurse...

I remember the skit from Carol Burnett....he really camped it up and looked horrible....funny horrible.

[Agnosticsherbet]

90. No.

[LittleBlue]

92. Absolutely not. nt

[Prism]

103. I'm thinking of being a male nurse

I've heard a lot from other male nurses, and they all say I should because "male nurses are in high demand."

I asked why this was. The answers I've gotten vary from patient comfort (male patients want males) to physical strength. I had two side jobs caring for quadriplegic men last year that required a lot of brute physical strength to manage (even with balance techniques to pivot lift into chairs, one of these patients was 230 lbs. I'm a strong guy, but that job was a pain in my ass).

I don't know if that factors into this. The rarity of males in the field vs the need/want for them.

But if this is equal pay for equal work discrimination, then it should be investigated and rooted out. The 21st century is no place for it.

I think a lot is straight up sexism. What does a male anesthetist bring to the table that a female one does not? Or administrative positions? Shitty.

[JI7]

119. looks like this happened to a friend

she was talking about work and how she feels taken advantage of and not being happy. she had a cousin who started working there also and he didn't like it but they offered him more money but he had other good offers also.

she has been a nurse longer and ins't getting offered as much as he is.

[raven mad]

125. I think ALL nurses are worth it!

I get your point - no, the male nurses aren't worth more. Given that the jobs have equal difficulty, the pay should be equal. I can understand why a specialized pediatric ICU nurse may be paid more than a nurse working the general non-infections illness floor; but not because of their gender.

[lonestarnot]

129. Why are women putting up with this shit. Start filing or something!

[uponit7771]

139. Can't, no emperical proof even at a granular level and the judges are mostly male too so...

... people in US think these officials and hospitals are objective robots and they're not

[WestCoastLib]

132. Due to supply...yes

My cousin is a male nurse. He's highly sought after, because they are greatly outnumbered by their female counterparts and, in many places, in short supply.

He's often moved to new, higher paying jobs jn different cities across the country when hospitals have been in particular need of male nurses.

My cousin is also 6'2" or more and 250 lbs. He can lift most patients with little trouble.

If the number of available male nurses was the same as the number of available female nurses then, no, a male nurse would not be worth more. But it's not. The healthcare industry does not have enough male nurses, so they are worth more.

[uponit7771]

138. There's few if any that a male nurse can do that a female cant with the right tools...

... and the tools aren't worth > 5k a year

[TheKentuckian]

141. No, but I'm curious how much the gap closes if we had paid maternity leave and some

child and elder care system in place besides "you are on your own".

I'm sure there would still be a discrepancy but it seems like factors like those would add up to some level of significance.

[craigmatic]

142. The question is why these numbers look like this. Personally I think that it involves

motherhood and the issues that come with it. Female nurses get pregnant and have to stay out when the kids get sick. I'm assuming maybe that's part of the reason.