Nursing will become a male profession

I tried to think of a good career track for people who aren’t able to commit to the six years of education required to become a pharmacist, and who aren't BIGLAW material. The answer is nursing. Nursing and related medical technician fields are the only guaranteed way for a person of average (but not below-average) intelligence to have a guaranteed middle class income, and not have to worry about being laid off and unemployable some time down the road.

The demand for nurses increases every year, but at the same time there’s declining demand for decent-paying traditionally male blue collar jobs. As a result, you see more men going into nursing today than you did ten or twenty years ago.

There is the perception that women are better nurses because they are more caring, but I believe that this reputation is falsely earned. Women care a lot about their own children, and to a lesser extent they care about children in general, but when it comes to caring for adult strangers, I believe than men are just as caring, if not more caring, than women. It goes back to the hunter-gatherer days, when men would go out hunting in large groups. If a man was injured on the hunt, the other men in the hunting party would take care of the wounded man. So you see, men have evolved to care for their fellow injured man.

Man’s greater physical strength makes him better suited for nursing, because men are better at lifting nonambulatory patients.

Currently, there is still a stigma attached to male nurses, and this scares away most men from nursing. But as the number of male nurses increases, there will eventually be a tipping point at which time the stigma will go away and men will flood into the field. After the tipping point, nursing will rapidly become a predominately male profession.

Comments

[Wet n' Cold]

--I believe than men are just as caring, if not more caring, than women.--

Much better EMTs, medics or corpsmen than females. More guts too...

[S]

I doubt it.

Swabbing the bums of geriatric incontinents is even less appealing to men than swabbing the bums of their own infants.

[sabril]

"Man’s greater physical strength makes him better suited for nursing, because men are better at lifting nonambulatory patients. "

Most hospitals have guys whose job it is just to lift nonambulatory patients.

Anyway, I am a bit skeptical of your prediction. Executive secretaries and paralegals can make good money and men are not flooding into those jobs.

I think part of the problem is that a nurse will ALWAYS be subordinate to doctors without any hope of promotion to their level. Similarly, a paralegal is ALWAYS subordinate to attorneys.

I will hypothesize that men prefer jobs which either (1) women do not or cannot do; or (2) entail significant opportunities for rising to the top.

If I were trying to pick up a girl in a bar, I would much rather tell her I'm a process server than a paralegal.

[Sheila Tone]

"There is the perception that women are better nurses because they are more caring, but I believe that this reputation is falsely earned."

I hope you are not seriously contending the field is majority female because of a perception women do better at it. Rather, nursing (like teaching children) is one of the jobs that women have been funneled into because men didn't want it. The fact that it was majority female allowed employers to get away with low pay, further decreasing its desirability to men.

Most of them men who go into nursing are racial minorities and/or immigrants.

"Man’s greater physical strength makes him better suited for nursing, because men are better at lifting nonambulatory patients."

They used to call people who did this "orderlies," and they were often men. It wasn't prestigious duty.

[Test Test]

On this thread...the immigration reform package, unfortunately, seeks an unlimited number of H-1B visas. And it will probably pass.

It also mentions health occupations as well as the usual tech occupations as eligible for the visa--both in unlimited number. And it establishes an agency to test the market and decide which occupations get the visas.

Since trying to prevent Congress from passing the bill won't work, programmers should try to actively point out that IT--which has steadily declining wages--is about 1/3 the size of the healthcare industry (which has increasing wages.) Because of this, less than 1/3 of the total number of approved visas should go to the IT industry.

We need to start sending this message out to the new agency in charge of approving visas--perhaps they can be presuaded, if Congress can't.

[Alex]

"I hope you are not seriously contending the field is majority female because of a perception women do better at it. Rather, nursing (like teaching children) is one of the jobs that women have been funneled into because men didn't want it. The fact that it was majority female allowed employers to get away with low pay, further decreasing its desirability to men."

This statement is wrong, but it is a common misconception. Jobs of very high and very low desirability are often male, while jobs of middling desirability are more likely to be feminine. Nursing is predominately done by women because:

-There's not much room for advancement.
-It requires caring, which is generally seen as being feminine.

It is not because it is undesirable. Being a miner is a very bad job. Being a janitor is a bad job. Being a soldier is a bad job. Yet these are among the most masculine jobs in our society.

[Ramesh Chambra]

For heavens sake dont generalise.Wehave the good and the not so good among male and female nurses

[Winston Smith]

Nurses who can't lift patients should have their wages cut by the amount of the orderlies salary.

Of course this makes too much sense to come about. What's going to happen is that women on the fire department will get guys to shaddow them around and do all the lifting.

[Kevin K]

There lots of other jobs in hospitals that require a little 2-year licensing degree that pay pretty well.

For instance, therpists and techs for radiology department who set up patients in CT scanners and who read the X-rays. Neither requires a college degree. In radiation onoclogy, there are dosimetrists who run computer plans who make very competitive salaries and doesn't need a college degree. A physician's assistants make more than nurses and doesn't require a medical degrees.

I've met and worked with several male nurses who were good in the way female engineers are usually good. Men who chose that profession (or women who choose engineer) tend to do so because they are very good at it rather than its a default profression for their gender.

[Turambar]

What happened to pharmacist? I though your logic was pretty solid there, although undoubtedly their position is being eroded a bit.

OT: HS post on the Christmas airline bomber from the class perspective would be welcome.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/wealthy-quiet-unassuming-the-christmas-day-bomb-suspect-1851090.html
His father is a big noise Nigerian, chairman of the Bank of Nigeria, and he is at the University College London and set up for a baller lifestyle tried to kill himself with explosive sewn into his non-Mormon underpants. Whats up?

[Glossy]

"Rather, nursing (like teaching children) is one of the jobs that women have been funneled into because men didn't want it."

"Have been funneled into" - such a load of feminist crap. Funneled by what or whom? I say by nature, biology, evolution. You say the evil male power structure or some such, right? Then why are all the least pleasant and most dangerous jobs on earth - jobs like mining, bomb disposal, arctic fishing, firefighting, garbage removal, etc. - held by men? I've never seen a woman riding in one of those sanitation department trucks. Where is this evil female power structure that keeps "funneling" men into all the jobs that are more dangerous and less pleasant than nursing or teaching?

In the real world women tend to be more caring than men. They have an inborn maternal instinct that can be easily applied to teaching and nursing. An efficient society utilizes its members' competences and proclivities efficiently. In the case of women that means traditional female occupations. Men are more likely than women to like danger and to be able to think abstractly and independently. That translates into a different occupational profile.

From the evolutionary point of view each individual man is much cheaper than each individual woman. If 90% of the men of a tribe get killed in a war, the size of the next generation will not be affected because the surviving 10% will pick up the slack and father all the children that need to be fathered. If half the women die, the next generation will be smaller than the current one.

This relative cheapness of men is another reason why all the most dangerous and least pleasant jobs usually end up being held by men.

[Haumea]

"Swabbing the bums of geriatric incontinents is even less appealing to men than swabbing the bums of their own infants."

I'm pretty sure will have automatic bum swabbers within the next ten years.

One reason why HS's prediction may come true -- there's a decent likelyhood that as nursing becomes more mechanized, a greater part of the job will entail playing with increasingly sophisticated biomedical equipment.

[whiskey]

Ever been to a Hospital? If you have lots of sick relatives like me, you've been to the Hospital (extensively, visiting) every Quarter.

Here's the deal: Nurses who are male are either ex-Military older guys, or Filipinos, or flamingly absolutely GAY GAY GAY. Why? Because being in that profession is a killer for attraction to women. It is even worse than being a teacher.

Yes, you can make good money if the government does not predictably (see above comment) flood the field with H1-B visas. Which of course is a done deal.

But the stigma is huge. The women around you might as well have a force-field around them, the macho-tough EMTs/Firemen on the tough working class adventure side, and doctors earning bigger bucks with more authority on the other side, make a male nurse a loser.

Hardworking immigrants who are already married, don't give a crap about Anglo culture or what people think of them, ex-military guys who are married and don't care either, or the gay ones are the only male nurses out of the literally thousands I've seen over the years at local SoCal hospitals and skilled care facilities.

[bjk]

I was talking to a female nurse who quit because she couldn't take the emotional toll of all her patients dying. That's a very difficult job to hire for . . . And as more money goes into consumption of non-productive services like labor intensive health care, economic growth will slow down.

This is OT, but as more money goes into charity (see Gates and Buffett fortunes, many internet billionaires have gone into charity, see Jeff Skoll and Google.org) more and more capital is being devoted to non-productive uses. Every share that Buffett or Gates sell and put into another failed charter school is many that could have been put to productive use.

[Big Don]

If you are talking degreed Registered Nurses (RN's) and Nurse Practitioners, the gender balance will probably approach a 50-50 equilibrium, rather than becoming male top-heavy. The schools control the mix, and PC/EEOC pressures will force the issue the way it has evolved in Medicine and Dentistry. Check the mix today in your local health sciences schools...

[superdestroyer]

Nursing should be easier for men because entry level for nurses means shift work with nights, weekends, and holidays. Men have always seem to find it easier to work shift work. working in an empty hospital at night is easier for men than women

There are also areas where men find it easier to work such as Emergency Medicine, mental health, or orthopedics. There is also a career path where a male nurse can get a masters degree or MBA and move into management.

One of the problems that men face is that upper management will be all women and work hard to support other women. Nursing management works like a soroity and men are just not that welcome.

Orderlies no longer exist. There is patient transport but nurses move patients all of the time.

Other healthcare fields for men include medical maintainance, (can start with an associates degree and almost all male), radiology technicians and get a cheap MBA to move into management, administration, research support, materaisl, housekeeping management, or facilities. All dependable jobs and all heavily male.

[Shawn]

"Nursing and related medical technician fields are the only guaranteed way for a person of average (but not below-average) intelligence to have a guaranteed middle class income, and not have to worry about being laid off and unemployable some time down the road."

But there is also teaching at the high school level or below, post office work (tilted in favor of Blacks, really, any sort of government job.

[Kevin K]

"It also mentions health occupations as well as the usual tech occupations as eligible for the visa--both in unlimited number. And it establishes an agency to test the market and decide which occupations get the visas."

Health professions, unlike tech professions, usually require a certification process. Its difficult to manage the certification process while mainting your visa. In addition, if you actually have to pay for school to get certified, unlike grad school in engineering, CS and physics, then that creates a barrier to entry as well.

The AMA can protect doctors salaries because every doctor needs to go through a long certified training process which is very difficult to get a visa for and the student visa is pointless since medical is so expensive and foreigners can't get loans.

[Bob Sykes]

Three of my sisters and one of my nieces are nurses (RNs and LPNs). The job is dirty, low-paying and often emotionally traumatic.

As part of the Democrats medical reform package, the pay of all medical personnel will be reduced as will the staffing levels at hospitals and nursing homes. So the job looks to get even worse.

In Britain, the socialized medical system has produced very large numbers of doctors and nurses who are indifferent to the needs and dignity of their patients and who behavior towards them is abusive to the point of literal death.

Looks like a job to avoid at all costs.

[JewishAtheist]

"For heavens sake dont generalise."

LOL, you must be new here.

[Chris]

I was astonished at the caring compassionate nature of a male nurse at the OB ward where my wife had our first child. By contrast, two of the female nurses were just incredibly harsh and businesslike - one was extremely rude to me, clearly communicating to me that I had no idea what I was doing as a first time dad in a very brusque way.

The male OB nurse was straight, married with 3 kids. I think the stigma is going away, but they need a new name for the profession.

[superdestroyer]

Kevin K,

A radiation therapist is at least an associates degree and many have a bachelors degree. A dosimetrist requires a BS and experience. If one wants to be a dosimetrist, you have to find one of the few undergraduates programs.

A PA is a graduate degree just like a nurse practitioner. Nurses are like teachers in that they eventually have to go to graduate school to move up the latter.

Physical therapy requires a PhD these days. Pharmacy required a PharmD and is an eight year program. Speech Pathologist requires a masters degree.

[Richard Hoste www.hbdbooks.com]

""Have been funneled into" - such a load of feminist crap. Funneled by what or whom? I say by nature, biology, evolution. You say the evil male power structure or some such, right? Then why are all the least pleasant and most dangerous jobs on earth - jobs like mining, bomb disposal, arctic fishing, firefighting, garbage removal, etc. - held by men? I've never seen a woman riding in one of those sanitation department trucks. Where is this evil female power structure that keeps "funneling" men into all the jobs that are more dangerous and less pleasant than nursing or teaching?

In the real world women tend to be more caring than men. They have an inborn maternal instinct that can be easily applied to teaching and nursing. An efficient society utilizes its members' competences and proclivities efficiently. In the case of women that means traditional female occupations. Men are more likely than women to like danger and to be able to think abstractly and independently. That translates into a different occupational profile.

From the evolutionary point of view each individual man is much cheaper than each individual woman. If 90% of the men of a tribe get killed in a war, the size of the next generation will not be affected because the surviving 10% will pick up the slack and father all the children that need to be fathered. If half the women die, the next generation will be smaller than the current one.

This relative cheapness of men is another reason why all the most dangerous and least pleasant jobs usually end up being held by men."

Thank you. I was about to reply to this feminist/socialist garbage about a subservient group getting "funneled into" a low paying profession by a sexist power structure. Just like blacks and Mexicans just always happen to be "funneled into" poor neighborhoods and schools, right?

[abeofmain]

There are certainly a lot of arguments on both sides of the issue here

Can anyone else on this blog suggest a profession in which a man of 100 IQ can get a job that guarantees that he will be in the middle class for his whole life ?

My IQ is much higher and I went in to a field where I am paid accordingly. But many of ny nephews have 100 IQ (for the obvious reasons) and thus I find myself having to give career advice on what 100 IQ men should do.

So I'd like to see more discussion of this

[meep]

A lot of nurses do not need to lift anybody. They do stuff like take blood, bring food, take temps, keep records, change out IV bags, etc. Then you've got all the medical positions outside of hospitals - the doctor's aides in private offices. There are positions going from master nurse [masters degree] down through RN and basic assistant. Some nurses have limited prescription powers, and are allowed to diagnose; some just do basic admin for doctors.

I can see more men getting into the profession, but I doubt it will ever be male-dominated, unless the job became more remunerative.

[Test Test]

I'd agree it's ego-damaging to even think about nursing...most guys don't want to look like they aimed for, and got, second place. They'd rather look like they didn't want that field anyway--even if that hurts their income.

If you're white, pharmacy requires a 3.4. It does, however sound a lot "less" like second place than nursing. There's plenty of sharp white guys who only got a 3.3 (I'm one. 99th percentile SATs, 93rd percentile GMAT. 3.3 undergrad GPA. I have no defense really; I was working and I could have gotten a 3.4 by graduating just one semseter later and retaking a class. Back then, pharmacists were making a lot LESS than programmers--so there wasn't really anything out there where getting a 3.4 rather than a 3.3 was worth graduating 6 months later.)

Fact is, nursing shouldn't pay better than IT. It doesn't in most countries. In America, we've flooded IT with a huge number of immigrant workers--but haven't (yet) done that to nursing. (It would be in programmers interests to provide the government with accurate information about the economy and encourage the government to import health rather than IT workers. As part of the immigration bill, there will be a new agency created to study the economy's future labor demands. Perhaps this agency will listen to suggestions from the various programmer's unions.)

We're in the process of creating a bubble that will inflate the wages of health workers even further. It is a bubble; however--China doesn't want to be paid back in "free health insurance"--they want to be paid back in tangible goods and in tax dollars collected from employees that are NOT working for the government.

Finally to all the guys saying "choose occupation X; get an MBA and go into management" are missing a variable. An MBA doesn't get one into management. Being tall does. It's far more important to be tall than to have an MBA.

[S]

, "a greater part of the job will entail playing with increasingly sophisticated biomedical equipment"

Oh, come on. There will never be sophisticated biomedical equipment developed for bum-swabbing.

Point of fact, diagnostic imaging technology (which, btw, does NOT include reading, i.e., interpreting the films. That's done by the radiologist, who is an M.D. and who has one of the highest prestige / pay specialties that exist in medicine) which uses the highest of high tech sophisticated biomedical equipment -- an MRI scanner is a couple million bucks installed -- is a female-dominated field. I should know, being's I am one.

[S]

Other healthcare fields for men include medical maintainance, (can start with an associates degree and almost all male), radiology technicians

Nope. Same deal in diagnostic imaging (radiology technicians) as in nursing: The guys are overwhelmingly either ex-corpsmen who learned it in the military, Filipino or gay, gay, gay.

HOWEVER, Medical Radiation Physicists is a good growth industry for guys -- since the work must be done onsite (measuring radiation equipment output)field is not outsourceable. Requiring the masters/ Ph.D. kinda pushes the Filipinos out.

http://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/careers/index.cfm?pg=rtcareer#2
Qualified medical physicists work directly with the doctor in the treatment planning and delivery. They oversee the work of the dosimetrist and help ensure that complex treatments are properly tailored for each patient. Qualified medical physicists are responsible for developing and directing quality control programs for equipment and procedures. They are responsible for making sure the equipment works properly. Medical radiation physicists take precise measurements of radiation beam characteristics and do other safety tests on a regular basis. Qualified medical physicists have doctorates or master's degrees. Qualified medical physicists have completed four year of college. They also have had two to four years of graduate school and typically one to two years of clinical physics training. They are certified by the American Board of Radiology or the American Board of Medical Physics.

[Wilbur Simonson]

2008 median income for:
licensed practical and licensed vocational nurses: $39,030
registered nurses: $62,450
all full time workers, age 25+: $42,144
all full time workers, age 25+, with a bachelor’s degree: $55,656

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/cpstables/032009/perinc/new03_010.htm http://www.bls.gov/oes/2008/may/oes291111.htm#(2)
http://www.bls.gov/oes/2008/may/oes292061.htm

[Twain]

I wish I had become a teacher or a radiology tech instead of going to work at a corporation. Corporations are very unstable,unpleasant places to work. Most people at a corporation don't make a lot of money either.There aren't many 100 -300 thousand dollar jobs at a corporation and guys who get the jobs may not have them for long.

I could have been a radiology tech in 2 years instead of wasting 4 years to get a useless business degree. Most people are wasting time and money getting a 4 year degree. The whole educational system must be changed. Charles Murray had a book on it-Real Education-I think it was called. I know a guy who has a finance degree and is a mailman. How many computer people are actually working in the field now?
How would more people graduating from high school or college help society. There aren't enough jobs as ii is now for college graduates and many of those jobs don't really require a 4 yr degree. Policeman,reporter ,to name a few, didn't have to have degrees in the past.

All the teachers I know are married, so it's not that difficult to get married being a teacher. I am still unmarried and am not a teacher or a nurse. Most people are going to get a pretty average looking person(In the US that means fat) and even people who are great looking can become ugly quickly.

[Haumea]

"But there is also teaching at the high school level or below, post office work (tilted in favor of Blacks, really, any sort of government job. "

Yeah, we need to encourage men with IQs of 100 to become teachers. Great advice!

[Kevin K]

"HOWEVER, Medical Radiation Physicists is a good growth industry for guys -- since the work must be done onsite (measuring radiation equipment output)field is not outsourceable. Requiring the masters/ Ph.D. kinda pushes the Filipinos out."

But since it requires a degree in physics (or EE or something like that) it blocks out a lot of men who would find that a barrier. Also, you can get into that career track from a grad program in physics, which means students from China can get into the US with an entry visa and then get into a residency/post-doc training program. I.e. a large number of medical physicists in the US are foreign and becoming more foreign. By the way, 500 medical physicists are trained in the PRC versus only 200 or so in the US. Where do you think the PRC medical physicist would like to work?

Also, radiation oncology is a limited way of treating cancer and its role will likely decline in the future.

[superdestroyer]

S,

Therapy medical physicist requires an undergraduate degree in physics or engineering, a PhD from one of the few ABR approved graduate programs, a post-doc and a three year board exam process. It is definitely not a job for middle IQ.

Medical maintenance is a job that one can get with an associates degree in Biomedical technology or a BS in biomedical engineering technology from a third tier university. The military does not train enough people to fill all of the medical maintenance jobs anymore. And I have never met an apparent homosexual medical maintenance job.

[John]

"Can anyone else on this blog suggest a profession in which a man of 100 IQ can get a job that guarantees that he will be in the middle class for his whole life ?"

#1 A civil service job.

#2 A craft job (plumber, ect.)

[Kudzu Bob]

"Deuce Bigelow, Male Nurse":

Will you collaborate with me on the screenplay, Half Sigma? We stand to make a fortune!

[Yawner]

"Corporations are very unstable,unpleasant places to work."

I have not found it so. My experience has been that corporations are *too stable* in the sense that many people who *should* be fired on grounds of incompetence or turpitude are not.

My mother is a radiologist, and I have met quite a few radiology techs in my time. Seems like a reasonably good job for an average-IQ guy, though I think the techs are disproportionately female. Don't go into it if you have a problem with doctors looking down on you, though.

[Winston Smith]

abeofmain, They should look at the police and fire departments.

To get some of the stigma out of nursing for men, we need to change the name of the job. It should called paradoctoring or something.

[AshAndMistyInLove]

"This is OT, but as more money goes into charity (see Gates and Buffett fortunes, many internet billionaires have gone into charity, see Jeff Skoll and Google.org) more and more capital is being devoted to non-productive uses. Every share that Buffett or Gates sell and put into another failed charter school is many that could have been put to productive use. "

You are indeed correct that while charity might seem to be magnanimous, it can unutilitarian in the long run especially when the charity is used to provide short term relief to problems instead of providing for long term solution. Also, half-sigma also stated that charity is merely a hobby from the rich so it is not done from purely altruistic motives.

However, despite that, my main question is what would be a productive use of capital? What would be a productive investment?

http://www.marketfolly.com/2009/09/hedge-fund-clarium-capitals-august.html

In the linked commentary, Clarium pointed out that corporations are net suppliers of capital meaning that they do not have a shortage of investable capital. The report also points out, that unlike China, developed nations have reached the limit of tangible capital formation (e.g. houses, factories, etc.) so investing in tangible capital would not lead to significant returns. For developed nations, this would leave intangible capital, but the two known investments on intangible capital - education and health care - are horrible investments and some might argue that they should be viewed as comsumption. Another form of investment that was not in the report is social capital investment, but my realist side say that is type of sending will not yield much because the US is a diverse nation (ironically, it might have worked in Japan though, but they built bridges to nowhere.)

Also, Peter Thiel pointed out that investment in technological innovation is inhibited by a free-rider problem as everyone expect great innovation, but they expect someone else to innovate.

http://www.leveragingideas.com/2009/10/04/notes-peter-thiel-singularity-summit-talk/

[Anthony]

"I'm pretty sure will have automatic bum swabbers within the next ten years."

They'll be invented and used in Japan. America will just hire more Filipinos to do that job.

[David Alexander]

*techs for radiology department who set up patients in CT scanners and who read the X-rays*

From my observations of my cousin, I'd state that becoming a radiology tech is a 4 year AS programme (2 years class + 2 years internship) in New Jersey. As for the market, from what she says, it's saturated and the perpetual overtime that once came with the job is no longer there, and some techs are really part-timers working at multiple facilities.

As for me, I concluded that nursing isn't for me since it's likely that as a male nurse, I'll be coerced into doing the heavy work that the females can't do, and I'm far too clumsy and absent minded to dole out medication and supervise patients...

*Can anyone else on this blog suggest a profession in which a man of 100 IQ can get a job that guarantees that he will be in the middle class for his whole life ?*

Railroad engineer for a Class I freight railroad, Amtrak, or commuter rail agency.

[Haumea]

"Oh, come on. There will never be sophisticated biomedical equipment developed for bum-swabbing."

So I take it you're not an actual engineer but play one on HS.com?

[Kudzu Bob]

"In the linked commentary, Clarium pointed out..."

Odd that you cited the post of troll whose rhetorical quiver doesn't hold many arrows, to put it charitably, but who has no lack of additional aliases, such as HellKaiserRyo and Aki_Izayoi. And a Google search just now revealed that Ashley and Misty are Pokemon characters. Hmmm.

Say,"Ashleyandmistyinlove," you wouldn't just happen to have any thoughts on Scandinavian social democracies,the futility of competition, and hikikomori that you'd like to share with the rest of the class, would you?

[Kirk]

Cool "male" jobs.

Diesel Mechanic

High-voltage line worker

Truck driver

Dock worker

[Lil' Barry Bailout]

A potential flaw in your thinking: Once people, male or female, start flooding the nursing profession, employers will be able to lower wages (the old supply/demand thing). Of course, the government could always step in and distort the market with rules on pay, or nurses could organize and threaten to strike.

I wouldn't advise young people to go into the medical profession these days. Unless they like bureaucracy and rigid labor markets that don't reward performance.

[Shawn]

"Yeah, we need to encourage men with IQs of 100 to become teachers. Great advice!"

There are dozens of jobs that can provide someone with an average IQ (White normed @ 100) an opportunity for a middle-class lifestyle or even upper-class lifestyle, for that manner -- but getting on the right career track early on is important.

Someone with an IQ of 100 will be disadvantaged in some occupations but nonetheless has the *capability* of being any of the following: college professor, electrical engineer, accountant, social scientist, high school teacher, etc. It appears that someone with an IQ of 100 simply cannot be an MD, however. My information comes from the IQ bands which appear on this page:

http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/Occupations.aspx

[Shawn]

Robert Hauser's "Meritocracy, cognitive ability, and the sources of occupational success" (2002) paper ( http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/cde/cdewp/98-07.pdf ) has a graph which points suggests that you only need a minimum IQ for the following professions:

MD: 105
College Professor: ~97
Electrical Engineer: 95
Lawyer: 99
Social Scientist: ~93
Natural Science, Math: ~93
High School Teacher: ~91
Accountant: ~92
Public Administrator (management): 89
Cop or Detective: 85

So what does this all mean??

Answer: If your IQ reaches the minimum for the above occupations they are within your mental reach; since the incentive is a middle to upper-class lifestyle, there is no reason to not pursue the aforementioned occupations if they are of interest.

[GhostofHoppers]

Let me put forth a hypothesis -

For men with IQ over 130, getting trained as a surgeon is a job that guarantees an entire career with no periods of unemployment.

For men whose IQs are under 130 but who naturally enjoy sales, that is, no fear of rejection, and enjoy spending 12 hours a day speaking with people, I would strongly suggest sales. If your IQ is almost 130 you can get trained to sell highly technical equipment and fully utilize your 120 or 125 IQ and make a lot of money.

If your IQ is 100 you can get trained to sell less sophisticated stuff to a less sophisticated customer base.

But overall if you have a sales personality I think sales is a field in which you will never go hungry - there are ALWAYS companies eager to hire salesmen

If you totally lack the personality to sell, But are physically fit and brave, I personally think fireman is a good profession. If you include the value of pension and benefits, firemen make $100k a year mid career.

I would invite others to poke holes in the above statements. I mean I think that being a surgeon or fireman carries enough prestige (with different groups of females) that surgeons and firemen won't have much trouble attracting females. As for salesmen, well sales and game are very similar, so I have to assume that most salesmen won't have trouble attracting females.

The open issue is, if you are a man whose IQ is too low for surgery, social skills are too low for sales and physical fitness and bravery too low for fireman, what do you do? Half Sigma says nursing, but nursing might lead to lack of ability to attract females

so again, if you want to attract females without being a surgeon, salesman or fireman, what is the field to go in to if your iq is 100 to 110

[HS: Females are attracted to men who earn a decent living. A male nurse making $60K will attract a lot more women than an unemployed man.]

[CamelCaseRob]

It takes physical talent to be a surgeon -- not just IQ. Isn't that why most MDs don't become surgeons?

[The Undiscovered Jew]

Sigma, Smart people have more babies than dumb people - but after the age of 29:

Smart People Do Have Babies, But Later in Life

http://onestdv.blogspot.com/2009/12/smart-fraction-fertility-smart-people.html

As you go through the above data and look at the state level and age specific birth rates for non-Hispanic white women in the 2002 CDC pdf, you will note that individual states with positive social indicators do indeed positively correlate with state level fertility after the age of 29.

For example, high white IQ Colorado has a higher birth rate per 1000 than lower IQ Alabama after the age of 29. And high household income Massachusetts has a higher birth rate per 1000 than lower household income Arkansas after the age of 29. And high housing valuation California has a higher birth rate per 1000 than lower housing valuation Mississippi after the age of 29.

snip

1) It is true that overall fertility increases as positive social factors decrease. Put simply: Overall, stupid people are actually having more babies.

2) But if one breaks down the data by age group, this is not true. In fact, after age 29 amongst white women, positive social factors increase as fertility increases. Put simply: After age 29, smart people have more babies. Thus, one concludes modern society merely delays the fertility of smart people, it doesn't nullify it completely.

3) I have proved this by showing state income, housing valuations, and IQ have a strong positive correlation with state fertility for cohorts older than age 29.

[Black Death]

Almost all the health professions are good choices for future careers. Physicians, naturally, are at the top of the heap, but getting into medical school can be tough. And after that comes 3-6 years of residency and fellowship training before one can enter practice. Plus there's often a lot of debt.

The allied health professions (nursing, pharmacy, medical technology, radiology technology, dieticians, physical and occupational therapy, etc.) offer solidly middle class salaries, high job mobility and a great deal of flexibility in terms of hours and work environment.

I've taught nursing, medical technology and pharmacy students and have never noticed any difference in intelligence. Higher pharmacy salaries may reflect the longer training required.

"Gender redistribution" in these professiosn may reflect that men are no longer preferentially directed to medicine and women, to allied health professions. Years ago, women comrprised only a small minority of medical school enrollments; now they make up about 50%. So it's no surprise that men are flocking to the allied health professions.

By the way, general surgery isn't high up on the list of specialty choices. Many other fields (ENT, radiology, pathology, dermatology, urology, ophthalmology, etc.) offer equally good incomes without the long hours and intensity that a surgeon experiences.

As for firefighters, well, I have a lot of respect for them, but the job is very dangerous (much more so than police officer, for example) and, here in Michigan, a lot of them are being laid off as local governments struggle to balance their budgets. It's mostly those with little seniority that get axed, so I wouldn't afford the job of firefighter a great deal of security.

[Test Test]

I think there may be a difference between IQ an GPA. With affirmative action in vogue, GPA over test scores are emphasized for admissions for a lot of careers. GPA, I think, measures dilligence and whether or not you were working in college--in addition to IQ. Your boss tells you if you leave 15 minutes early again you could be fired. Your professor asks why you are always 10 minutes late. Your class group insists on meeting on the one day you're free from your other classes, and can work. Working will lower your grades; the question is only how much.

That's why you'll see people with pretty high IQs wind up with only slightly-above average gradepoints. Working in college won't explain the difference between a 3.8 and a 2.0 but it can explain the difference between a 3.5 and a 3.3. It won't affect entrance exams--anyone can afford to take a month off to study for one. Because of this, the switch from a focus on entrance exams to a focus on GPA hurts poor whites and asains--who are working, and will have similar grades but higher test scores than minorities who are not working.

I still think programming is good. It will get even better if the government targets other professions for visas.

Programmers can make more than nurses--even when downtime is factored in. There is much instability in programming--but 90K with some instability and also some upside potential is better, on average, than a guaranteed 60K.

The times when you're on the bench, however, can really devastate whatever self esteem was built up when working. Your neighbors will jump on you and call you a loser, etc...and never take the insult back when you're rehired. They'll do that even if you're contracting, and the downtime is pretty much a guaranteed part of the job.

The "in" technologies are constantly changing and much of this is a form of obfuscation--an attempt at creating a barrier to entry. There is no GPA requirement, but I think programming has a built-in IQ requirement that would be better reflected in pay scales if the visa laws were applied fairly to all professions rather than targeting just a few.

Overall, most of the time, I feel much better about myself being a programmer.

[Melykin]

There seem to be slightly more men than women going into the field of Respiratory Therapy. This requires a 3 year diploma or 4 year degree. Not much math-related stuff required. Just a first year physics course and a first year Stats course. They take a lot of anatomy and specialized stuff about the heart and lungs and various equipment. (this is from my observations as a person who teaches Stats to these students). Resp therapists work in ICUs and emergency rooms, a lots of other places. There doesn't seem to be a stigma for men in the profession, the way there still is in Nursing a bit.

People who like outdoors and adventure could go into Natural Resource Science. You can get either a two year diploma or a 4 year degree, also post grad degrees available. A lot of guys who don't like math too much go into this field. At the university in my town you only need one semester of calculus for the bachelor's degree. There are quite a few women in this field as well as men, and they often marry each other. For some reason almost all the people who go into this field are white (at least in Canada). You study forestry, wildlife, fisheries, range monument, etc. A lot of grads get jobs in government. My son got a bachelor's in this, and is currently working on a Ph.D. in wildlife ecology.

[cjw]

Nursing might yield a middle-class INCOME, but because of the type of work involved it is still socially high prole, not truly middle class. That it has an income higher than many middle class jobs is true of not just nursing but many high prole jobs in the building trades as well.

If one has any doubts about the class status of nursing, just look at the suddenly popular TV dramas about nursing. The attitudes in those shows are clearly designed to boost prole self-esteem, and nursing has become sort of the holy grail for middle-aged newly-divorced prole women.

If you don't care about the social stigma, then go ahead and be a nurse if you want. Just don't expect to be treated like a middle-class person once people know you're a nurse. Maybe you could get away with it if you had a supervisory position and didn't actually do anything resembling "nursing" anymore.

[Yawner]

I call bullshit on the idea that someone with an IQ of 100 can be a college professor. Someone with that IQ probably won't be interested in being a professor in the first place, but if they are, they are not going to make the cut for grad school, or pass their comprehensive exams, or finish their dissertation, or do what is needed to get hired and get tenure. Just not gonna happen. I knew people much smarter than that who never made it through all the hoops to get a PhD, and others who got the PhD but never became a professor. The vast majority of the undergrads I taught were much smarter than that, but still not smart enough to become professors, in my opinion. (And no, mere diligence is not enough.)

[AshAndMistyInLove]

Kudzu... thanks for realizing that I am/was a fan of PokéShipping. (And it is Ash, not Ashley... and thanks for not looking like an idiot and saying "Pokeman.")

Regarding that person's rhetoric quivers, I could say the same about some of the commenters here that they only thing in their rhetorical quivers is constant whining about NAMs and their low IQs. But to deprecate myself, I did make an idiot of myself here recently because I posted something about Sweden in the NY unhappiness thread because I did not read the entire comments as someone else posted something more articulate. BTW, the blog post that I linked to was actually market commentary from the "Clarium LP" hedge fund (whose performance was pathetic this year,) not the "troll" Aki_Izayoi; although that troll did post in the comment section of the linked article since he/she has some infatuation with that hedge fund.

Besides the digression, I asked a legitmate question this comment thread: what would be a productive use of capital? What type of investment would actually yield technological progress? I asked the question because technological innovation is very important in determining progress: without innovation you do not have progress, you just have zero-sum competition. Also, as correctly pointed out in the Clarium article and by a commenter, labor-intensive health care is unproductive.

[HS: This IP address has also posted a large number of comments under the pseudonym "Aki_Izayoi" ]

[Rohan Swee]

Test Test: "As part of the immigration bill, there will be a new agency created to study the economy's future labor demands. Perhaps this agency will listen to suggestions from the various programmer's unions."

Hilarious. As if this agency won't be stocked with hand-picked industry tools certified to find debilitating "labor shortages" in any occupation where Americans are still oh-so-unfairly pulling down middle-class wages. Nursing as a viable career will be H1B'd to death. Count on it. (Oh, and teaching, too. It's already started.)

[areader]

Getting rid of achievement gap: Berkeley High School is eliminating science labs and five science teachers because science labs benefit mostly white students.

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/berkeley-high-may-cut-out-science-labs/Content?oid=1536705

http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2009-12-17/article/34289?headline=Plan-to-Eliminate-Science-Labs-Stirs-Controversy-at-Berkeley-High

[Test Test]

"As part of the immigration bill, there will be a new agency created to study the economy's future labor demands. Perhaps this agency will listen to suggestions from the various programmer's unions."

The new immigration bill picks on everyone. All foreign health workers are cap exempt. So are tech workers with a US degree--so its, for the first time, picking on programmers LESS than other groups.

When it comes to H-1B, one group of workers is always being pitted against another. Importing cheap teachers means an increased demand for attendence software and lower taxes. Importing lots of one group always decreases wages for that group--and increases wages for everyone else. (This is the exact opposite of the way Marx saw things--all workers are not actually in the same boat but in completely different ones.)

That's why its important for Congress to recognize the principle of treating everyone equally. (Fat chance, I know. All I can hope for is that in the future they pick on programmers less.)

[Just Asking]

How is it possible to "import cheap teachers" when teacher salaries are determined via the pressure and lobbying of a powerful union on legislators? If they bring in a bunch of foreign teachers, won't they be paid the same as every other teacher, native-born or not?

[Nursing Entrance Test]

I remember the movie Meet the Fockers

[AshAndMistyInLove]

[Yes, I am Aki_Izayoi]

"When it comes to H-1B, one group of workers is always being pitted against another. Importing cheap teachers means an increased demand for attendence software and lower taxes. Importing lots of one group always decreases wages for that group--and increases wages for everyone else. (This is the exact opposite of the way Marx saw things--all workers are not actually in the same boat but in completely different ones.)"

If we take Half-Sigma's four post-Marxist classes hypothesis (I consider that idea to merit the appellation of "theory") seriously, one should focus on the workers in the College Graduate class, and the workers in the Proletariat class. The Proletariat class is largely unskilled or semi-skilled labor so their labor offers little differentiation thus we could consider all members of this class in the same boat. Thus, a general increase in the number of immigrants or more access to foreign workers via trade reduces the welfare of all members in this class. In the case of free trade, laid off factory workers do not get “raptured” once they are laid off; they have to find other jobs thus intensifying the competition within the proletariat class. The general Marxist sentiment that all proletariat class members are in the same boat is correct.

However, the college graduate class, by definition, has skills that are more distinct than the former class. Regarding interclass competition between the proletariat and college graduate class, the latter benefits when the former lower prices on labor intensive goods produced by the Proletariat class and their subsequent loss of bargaining power as they would invoke foreign instead of domestic labor to have access to labor intensive goods. But if the supply of doctors were increased because we imported more, everyone in the college graduate class, except doctors, and the proletariat class benefits because the price of a specialized service they consume is lower. (Randall Parker, however, argues that increase the supply of doctors would not lead to lower costs since the doctors have a greater incentive to order more tests and follow up visits.) The same logic could be applied to any profession within the college graduate class.

"Hilarious. As if this agency won't be stocked with hand-picked industry tools certified to find debilitating "labor shortages" in any occupation where Americans are still oh-so-unfairly pulling down middle-class wages. Nursing as a viable career will be H1B'd to death. Count on it. (Oh, and teaching, too. It's already started.)"

I am normally one of those people who thinks that benevolent informed technocrats are better governors than the free-market, the ignorant masses, and special interest lobbyists, but that is just my idealistic side talking. Yes, I do agree with you that new agency would be stacked by people in the value transference class who would use fictitious "labor shortages" to reduce the cost of labor.

[AshAndMistyInLove]

HS:

Do you consider nurses to be part of the proletariat or college graduate class in your model?

[jared]

There are some programs at hospitals which will pay for some of your tuition if you promise to work for them for x number of years. That can help reduce your debt pretty quickly. And, based on what I hear from a friend who is a nurse, if you want to make more money, you can pick up the shifts that nobody else wants.

Still, I'd much rather go the Physician Assistant route. Any job with "physician" in the title sounds a lot better for your social status, and the job pays more based on all the salary surveys I've seen. I'm not 100% on this, but I am pretty sure that Physicians Assistants don't have to do any of the grunt work like wiping asses and transferring patients..

[AshAndMistyInLove]

"I'm not 100% on this, but I am pretty sure that Physicians Assistants don't have to do any of the grunt work like wiping asses and transferring patients.."

Well, to answer my own question; perhaps investing in robots that can do the labor intensive grunt work is a good idea. It does devalue the value of unskilled labor, but it also benefits most people since they will eventually consume this type of service. What percentage of US health care costs go into unskilled labor in hospitals and nursing homes? If it is a high percentage, then maybe this would be a good investment.

Does anyone have any data about automation that would lower health care costs since it consumes a large portion of GDP and sucks capital from other parts of the economy as families have to take out debt to pay medical bills and goverments have to issue debt to finance their programs.

[Dave]

All these smart people here and no on willing to invent an electric bum-wiper.

[The Undiscovered Jew]

"All these smart people here and no on willing to invent an electric bum-wiper.

Posted by: Dave | December 29, 2009 at 08:37 PM"

I'm as baffled as you are.

[Sheila Tone]

"but when it comes to caring for adult strangers, I believe than men are just as caring, if not more caring, than women."

Yeah, just look at all the caring, supportive dudes who hang around here showing compassion for each other.

How much killing of large animals do you think the average prehistoric man really did?

Finally, I'm surprised not one guy has mentioned what I know you're all thinking: Most men don't like intimate contact with other men, of the type nurses often have to do.

[joe morrison]

Anyone who has had close contact with Hospitals knows that there is a hierarchy in the nursing profession. The smartest and best trained nurses treat the sickest (but curable) patients, in places like the ICU. The dumb bunnies end up delivering lunch trays, giving sponge baths, and preparing the recently dead for the morgue.

If you are a medically hopeless case with only Medicare coverage you will get virtually no visits from capable nurses -- the care (if you can call it that) you receive will come from thick witted nurses aids, LPNs, and non-medically trained orderlies. And with ObamaCare, dying in America will become all the more scary and unpleasant as the most vulnerable patients get delivered into the hands of people who are indifferent to their pain, condition, or dignity.

[acpeterro]

New grad nurses are having a hell of a time getting hired now. The shortage is a lie; the unfilled positions are those positions that the hospitals have open and won't fill, not that they can't fill. Old nurses aren't retiring because they can't afford to; their pensions tanked; their husbands lost their jobs. The hospitals don't want to assume the cost of training new grads; they're operating on a razor thin profit or at a loss; they're scared of Obamacare. There are new grads who haven't found a job in a year; they've hit their sell-by date. Don't go into nursing.