Men who go into nursing often have to face a bunch of bullshit gender stereotypes. But hey, at least they have the pay gap to make them feel better!


Yes, even in a field traditionally dominated by women, men still take home more sweet, sweet cash. That's according to a report just published in the journal of the AMA. NPR reports:

Even after controlling for age, race, marital status and children in the home, males in nursing outearned females by nearly $7,700 per year in outpatient settings and nearly $3,900 in hospitals. And as men flowed into nursing over the past decades, the pay gap did not narrow over the years studied: 1988 to 2013.


The New York Times averages it out, putting the overall gap at $5,100. Cool cool. Very cool.

Of course, like all things wage gap, it's very difficult to sort out what's actually happening here. The Times offers this bouquet of weeds and poison ivy:

There could be several reasons, Dr. Muench said: Men may be better negotiators, for instance, or perhaps women more often leave the work force to raise children. Women may have a tougher time getting promoted, she said. "A workplace may offer a bit more to the men in order to diversify," said Diana Mason, a professor of nursing at Hunter College of The City University of New York and former editor of The American Journal of Nursing. Still, it is possible that women earn less because of a "lingering bias that a man is more of an expert because he's a man," she said.

But there could be other factors at play, too. The Advisory Board's Jennifer Stewart pointed out to NPR that many men are comparatively new to the field, so the fact that lower-paid (but more desirable) day shifts go to senior staffers might be screwing with the numbers. And American Nurses Association health economist Peter McMenamin noted that there's just much less data for men, because they're a smaller share of the field— 9 percent in 2011—which could also impact the findings. "You can't say this is all a statistical fluke," he told the Times. "It's not. But there are different things that could explain some of this challenge."

But he admitted to NPR that the results are "dismaying." To say the least!

Photo via Shutterstock/ michaeljung .