Pay gap between men, women nurses remains, survey says

Even though the proportion of men working as nurses is still pretty small, they tend to make more than women in the same roles, perpetuating a gender-related wage gap, according to a new Medscape survey.

Male registered nurses who are on salary made 10 percent more than women, the survey found, and hourly male nurses made 5 percent more. There weren't enough male licensed practical nurses on salary to make a meaningful comparison, but those who were hourly still made about 7 percent more than women.

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All told, men accounted for just 9 percent of RNs and 8 percent of LPNs in the survey.

One of the factors possibly accounting for the difference is that male nurses were more likely to work in inpatient units and in urban hospitals, where pay tends to be better than in rural hospitals.

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Another factor could be overtime. Almost half of male nurses said they'd be likely to work overtime, and they're also more likely to work longer stretches of overtime; 34 percent of male nurses said their overtime consisted of six to 10 hours each week, and 26 percent reported that number as being 11 hours or more.

By comparison, only about 35 percent of female nurses said they regularly work overtime, and of those, 62 percent said it consisted of between one and five hours per week.

They survey also found discrepancies in pay when it came to nurses who work in unions as opposed to those who are non-unionized, On average, unionized nurses made about $90,000 in 2016, while nonunion nurses made $79,000.

Alaska, California and Hawaii are the most unionized parts of the country, and the average salary for nurses in those areas is $103,000, according to the survey.

Twitter: @JELagasse
Email the writer: jeff.lagasse@himssmedia.com