In 2015, we still live in a world where women and men are not paid equally regardless of experience and education.
Despite the fact that nine out of 10 nurses are women, a new study has found that male nurses are earning higher salaries, according to Reuters.
“Nursing is the largest female dominated profession so you would think that if any profession could have women achieve equal pay, it would be nursing,” stated lead study author Ulrike Muench from the University of California, San Francisco.
Recent research shows that registered nurses who are male earn nearly $11,000 more per year than RNs who are female, according to the LA Times. This means that there is reportedly a $5,148 salary gap that discriminates against women, according to the study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.
For the recent study, Muench and other researchers reportedly used two large U.S. data sets to analyze earnings over time. One data consisted of responses from nearly 88,000 participants from 1988 to 2008 while the other report offered responses from nearly 206,000 registered nurses from 2001 to 2013.
Each year, the data reportedly showed that men earned more than women. The gap for hospital nurses was $3,783 while the disparity was reportedly even bigger for nurses in outpatient settings at $7,678.
Although it’s unclear why females nurses are getting paid less in a profession they dominate, there is reportedly speculation that men are better and more encouraged to negotiate raises and promotions and are less likely to take extended time away from work to care for children and aging parents, according to Patricia Davidson, dean of the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing in Baltimore, Maryland.
Nursing allows people to work nontraditional hours, which is primarily why women are drawn to the profession, according to Davidson. The flexibility in schedule reportedly allows people to balance both a career and family obligations.
“It’s a real indictment that this issue of gender disparity is prevalent in nursing where it’s predominantly female,” stated Davidson.
She added, “In Wall Street or Silicon Valley people can dismiss it because it’s a culture that’s not known to be accommodating — a male-dominated work environment where it’s stacked against them — but when you see this inequity in nursing it speaks to a larger problem.”
