Male nurses are receiving higher salary than female nurses according to a new pay analysis published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Even though the pay gap between male and female has gradually narrowed in numerous professions since the enactment of the Equal Pay Act in 1963, the study reveals that inequality in earnings prevail in medicine and nursing

Several studies in the past reveal that male nurses have higher salaries compared to women in the same profession. In the new study conducted by researchers from the University of California in San Francisco, investigated the possible factors to explain the pay gap

They analyzed representative data from the recent quadrennial National Sample Survey of nurses that includes responses from 87,903 nurses, as well as data from the American Community Survey conducted in 2001 to 2013 with the responses from 205,825 nurses. In both database, the male proportion was only seven per cent

In every year, the studies reveal that the compensation for male nurses are higher than the salaries of female nurses. The researchers also discovered considerable trends in the salary gap that averaged as total adjusted income difference of $5,148

The pay gap in hospital setting is $3,873 while in ambulatory setting, the gap is $7,678. The only specialization wherein there is no considerable pay gap between male and female nurses was in orthopedics. The pay gap was also discovered to extend beyond the range of positions such as in oncology nurses and in middle management

The authors conclude that a pay gap based on gender is particularly significant in nursing because this is the largest in the health care where women are a majority (about 2.5 million women). According to a 2010 survey published in Nursing Management, the average salary of nurses in middle management is $4,000. The same survey also reveals that 60% of nurse managers believe that they were not receiving enough salary for their level of responsibility in the hospital setting