Demand for nurses has never been higher. It’s a career, and a calling, that is enduring an ongoing shortage into the next decade, if estimates are correct. That’s why more men are being encouraged to enter a field traditionally dominated by women.
Only 9 percent of the estimated 4 million nurses in America today are men, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. But those numbers are growing, with the number of active male RNs enrolled in graduate or doctoral programs increasing three-fold since 2000.
So why aren’t more men becoming nurses? Studies point to both stereotypes and barriers to gender diversity. In fact, in one recent study attempting to identify the few numbers of men in nursing, 70 percent of respondents cited stereotypes as a major challenge.
But in this new era, those challenges are beginning to change.
“Patients are much more receptive to health-care providers of similar cultural and ethnic backgrounds, and that may well translate to gender as well,” said Vernell DeWitty, deputy director of New Careers in Nursing, a program funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in an article on the foundation’s website.
“The shortage of the future will likely not be solved unless men are part of the equation,” added male nurse William T. Lecher, president of the American Assembly for Men in Nursing, in the same article.
“We really have to figure out how to provide more gender inclusion and balance in the nursing workforce.”
Similar studies show men who are drawn to a career in nursing typically pursue advanced degrees and often out-earn their female counterparts. That has contributed to the 11 percent rise in male nurses in the past few years, according to statistics collected by Montana State University in Bozeman.
That data also shows that, overall, men are more inclined to pursue careers as nurses in hospitals. Nearly 70 percent of male RNs worked in hospitals, as opposed to 61 percent of female RNs in 2015.
The study said male nurses may be more drawn to the types of care — emergency departments and critical care units — than women.
All the data and statistics point toward a challenging and lucrative career for men in nursing, where average salaries top $60,000. Now is an excellent time for men to consider careers in nursing — and to get over the stigma.
“Forget about the stigma,” Jorge Gitler, an oncology nurse manager, told The New York Times in an article focused on men who had left other careers to pursue nursing. “The pay is great, the opportunities are endless and you end up going home every day knowing that you did something very positive for someone else.”