Pay Discrimination in Nurses Based on Gender

According to the United States Census Bureau, on average earn 25 percent less than men. This shocking statistic, however, is progress from 1970 when women earned 41 percent less than men. This pay gap is seen in all occupations, but is the greatest in medicine and health management. In these categories, women earn only 63 percent of when men do. In nursing, a predominantly female medical field, as 9 out of 10 RNs (registered nurses) are women, female nurses earn only 88 percent of what male nurses do. Even when levels of education and experience are the same, female nurses continuously earn less than their male counterparts, although they report a high level of job satisfaction.

While both men’s and women’s salaries in nursing have increased annually, males still exceed the average salary for females by over $3,000. In the case of nurse practitioners, the gap is even greater, over $8,650 separates the annual salary over men compared to women. According to the 2005 National Survey of Nurse Practitioners, male nurse practitioners make an average annual salary of $82,647 compared to women’s salary of $73,986. That is an 11.7% difference, .7% higher than the difference of 10% in 2003.

Men in the nursing field tend to work in ICU (intensive care unit), CCU (coronary care unit), in the emergency room or in the psychiatric ward. These areas are viewed as masculine as “male” characteristics such as strength are especially valued. It just so happens that these areas of nursing are also those with the highest pay, the annual average is at least $60,000 compared to the annual average of all nurses of $49,634. It is argued that men should be paid more as they perform hard labor on the job, including lifting patients, etc., which women do not, and should therefore be compensated for it. However, prior to WWII, many schools would not accept men in their nursing field thereby leading to an almost all female nurse force. During these times, women obviously had to perform such hard labor tasks. Therefore, if women were able to do it in previous times, they can also do so