Male nurses earn more than female nurses, with female nurses making $0.91 US Dollars (USD) for every $1 USD that a male makes. This income gap between genders is smaller than the average across all occupations, which is $0.77 USD for a woman per $1 USD for a man. Although they earn higher incomes, men account for just 9% of the nursing workforce. The difference in income between the genders in the nursing field is thought to be partly because men might be more likely to work full-time. Men also tend to be more likely to be employed in higher-paid nursing occupations, such as nurse anesthetists, whose incomes typically are about four times as much as those of licensed practical nurses.
More about nursing:
- Registered nurses have one of the lowest unemployment rates, less than 2% in early 2013.
- For centuries, nursing was a mainly male-based field, until the 1900s, when the American Nursing Association focused more on women.
- Nurses have higher injury rates than construction workers and are more likely to be assaulted than prison guards