The nursing profession remains
overwhelmingly female, but the
representation of men has
increased as the demand for nurses
has grown over the last several
decades, according to a U.S.
Census Bureau study released
today.

The new study shows the
proportion of male registered
nurses has more than tripled since
1970, from 2.7 percent to 9.6
percent, and the proportion of male
licensed practical and licensed
vocational nurses has more than
doubled from 3.9 percent to 8.1
percent.1

The study, Men in Nursing
Occupations, presents data from
the 2011 American Community
Survey to analyze the percentage of
men in each of the detailed nursing
occupations: registered nurse,
nurse anesthetist, nurse
practitioner, and licensed practical
and licensed vocational nurse. The
study, and accompanying detailed
tables, also provide estimates on a
wide range of characteristics of
men and women in nursing
occupations. These include
employment status, age, race,
Hispanic origin, citizenship,
educational attainment, work hours,
time of departure to work, median
earnings, industry and class of
worker.

"The aging of our population has
fueled an increasing demand for
long-term care and end-of-life
services," said the report's author,
Liana Christin Landivar, a
sociologist in the Census Bureau's
Industry and Occupation Statistics
Branch. "A predicted shortage has
led to recruiting and retraining
efforts to increase the pool of
nurses. These efforts have included
recruiting men into nursing."

Men typically outearn women in
nursing fields but not by as much
as they do across all occupations.
For example, women working as
nurses full time, year-round earned
91 cents for every dollar male
nurses earned; in contrast, women
earned 77 cents to the dollar men
earned across all occupations.
Because the demand for skilled
nursing care is so high, nurses
have very low unemployment rates.
Unemployment was lowest among
nurse practitioners and nurse
anesthetists (about 0.8 percent for
both). For registered nurses and
licensed practical and licensed
vocational nurses, these rates were
a bit higher, but still very low, at 1.8
percent and 4.3 percent,
respectively.

Other highlights:
There were 3.5 million employed
nurses in 2011, about 3.2 million of
whom were female and 330,000
male.
Of the employed nurses (both
sexes), 78 percent were registered
nurses, 19 percent were licensed
practical and licensed vocational
nurses, 3 percent were nurse
practitioners, and 1 percent were
nurse anesthetists.
While most registered nurses (both
sexes) left home for work between
5 a.m. and 11:59 a.m. (72 percent),
a sizable minority (19 percent)
worked the evening or night shifts.
The majority of registered nurses
(both sexes) worked in hospitals
(64 percent). The majority of
licensed practical and licensed
vocational nurses worked in
nursing care facilities or hospitals
(about 30 percent each). The
percentages for hospitals and
nursing care facilities are not
significantly different from each
other.

In 2011, 9 percent of all nurses
were men while 91 percent were
women. Men earned, on average,
$60,700 per year, while women
earned $51,100 per year.
Men's representation was highest
among nurse anesthetists at 41
percent.
Male nurse anesthetists earned
more than twice as much as the
male average for all nursing
occupations: $162,900 versus
$60,700.
The American Community Survey
provides a wide range of important
statistics about people and housing
for every community across the
nation. The results are used by
everyone from town and city
planners to retailers and
homebuilders. The survey is the
only source of local estimates for
most of the 40 topics it covers,
such as education, occupation,
language, ancestry and housing
costs for even the smallest
communities.
Ever since Thomas
Jefferson directed the first census
in 1790, the census has collected
detailed characteristics about our
nation's people. Questions about
jobs and the economy were added
20 years later under James
Madison, who said such
information would allow Congress
to "adapt the public measures to
the particular circumstances of the
community," and over the decades
allow America "an opportunity of
marking the progress of the
society."

1The difference between the 2011
estimate and the 2000 and 2006
estimates for percentage of
licensed practical and licensed
vocational nurses who are men is
not statistically significant.


Source:
http://www.census.gov/
newsroom/relea...s/cb13-32.html