It’s been a small, incremental — but noticeable — change in recent years: Men are starting to take up a larger share of the registered nurse workforce. Women still make up the bulk of RNs — more than 90% according to the most recent Census Bureau estimates. But males have jumped from 7.7% of the RN workforce to 9.2% in 2009, while also accounting for a larger percentage of nursing school completers.
Fortune Magazine wrote about this last week, and we delve into this and other RN employment and supply trends in the following EMSI infographic.
This is excellent information on the breakdown of Registered Nurses. Hopefully more men will continue to enter the profession.
Is part of the reason for the oversupply due to the fact that fewer nurses are retiring because of the economy, or have we done “that great” of a job recruiting students to enter nursing? In 2005, analysts were calling for a severe nursing shortage. I’m puzzled.
Carla, I think the recession has prompted more nurses to stay in the workforce, coupled with fewer younger workers leaving too. The nursing shortage/oversupply debate is a very complex topic. We covered it at length last year in these two posts: http://www.economicmodeling.com/2010/06/11/comparing-the-output-of-nurses-with-estimated-demand/ and http://www.economicmodeling.com/2010/06/25/digging-deeper-into-data-on-registered-nurses/
Thanks,
Josh