Males in female health professions: Half Sigma predicted this

Back in December 2009, Half Sigma predicted that nursing, and implicitly other female-dominated health professions, will become male:

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.

. . .

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.

Two and a half years later, the New York Times has caught up with my prediction:

A male dental assistant, Mr. Alquicira is in the minority. But he is also part of a distinctive, if little noticed, shift in workplace gender patterns. Over the last decade, men have begun flocking to fields long the province of women.

Little noticed by most people maybe, but it was noticed by Half Sigma.

Mr. Alquicira, 21, graduated from high school in a desolate job market, one in which the traditional opportunities, like construction and manufacturing, for young men without a college degree had dried up. After career counselors told him that medical fields were growing, he borrowed money for an eight-month training course. Since then, he has had no trouble finding jobs that pay $12 or $13 an hour.

He gave little thought to the fact that more than 90 percent of dental assistants and hygienists are women. But then, young men like Mr. Alquicira have come of age in a world of inverted expectations, where women far outpace men in earning degrees and tend to hold jobs that have turned out to be, by and large, more stable, more difficult to outsource, and more likely to grow.

“The way I look at it,” Mr. Alquicira explained, without a hint of awareness that he was turning the tables on a time-honored feminist creed, “is that anything, basically, that a woman can do, a guy can do.”

I love that last remark. Anything that a woman can do, a man can also do.

The NY Times article even addressed the stigma issue:

In interviews, however, about two dozen men played down the economic considerations, saying that the stigma associated with choosing such jobs had faded, and that the jobs were appealing not just because they offered stable employment, but because they were more satisfying.

I was two and a half years ahead of the New York Times in spotting this trend.

Comments

[DaveinHackensack]

Male dental assistants may be new, but male nurses aren't. That trend has been growing for at least a decade. Nursing also requires more physical strength these days, as patients tend to be heavier and more difficult to move.

[Samson J.]

Nursing also requires more physical strength these days, as patients tend to be heavier and more difficult to move.

Definitely. Musculoskeletal injuries are pretty common among older nurses.

In my experience, male nurses are usually great! They can do the job just as well as women and they are much less catty, more no-nonsense while still caring about the patients. Also, they are very often sort of "hyper-masculine" as a compensation for working in a traditionally female field, which you might think would be fake and annoying but actually I often find it refreshing to have that extra testosterone floating around. The last male nurse I worked with was a blond guy, built like a shick brithouse, covered in tattoos, nice as anything. I really liked him.

[Thrasymachus]

In the old days a man with a high school education could get jobs at the equivalent of $12-13 an hour without any additional training, much less an eight-month course. But that's illegal immigration for you.

[BlogRaju]

Read the following article in China Daily:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2012-05/03/content_15193321.htm

"'Many students even reject their identity as a male nurse, out of the long-existing discrimination,' Zhao [Zhao Yue, director of the School of Nursing of the Tianjin Medical University] said. 'But nursing truly needs the male attribute to their rational thinking, physical strength and calmness in face of emergency and disasters.'"

[b-nasty]

In addition to the strength requirement, male nurses seem better able to handle the pressures of the job. If you ever want to hear a diatribe, ask an older, woman nurse about her job. It rivals older, female schoolteachers.

I know a male nurse, and it's not really that bad of a gig. If you're willing to move around the country, it can be very lucrative. He moved South on a temporary (< 1year) contract and cleared 6 figures for his trouble.

[jon]

"But nursing truly needs the male attribute to their rational thinking, physical strength and calmness in face of emergency and disasters"

LOL. Those sexist Chinese.

[Felix]

On the other hand, women increasingly dominate admissions to medical school. More male nurses and fewer male doctors is not really a fair trade, neither for males nor the medical professsion.

[Anonymouse]

I don't want a god-damn male nurse.

[j]

You should monetize your prophetic powers. I advise Wall Street.

[Peter]

Health care's sort of a special case because it offers better opportunities than many other field and therefore's going to be a draw for both men and women. It would be interesting to see if there's been an influx of men into formerly female-dominated jobs in other fields.

[drole prole]

Wow, I was absolutely blind to the fact that more males have become nurse over the past few years. Thanks for revealing this trend and enlightening me.

[drole prole]

Much of the health care is to care for the rapidly increasing number of boomers who will bleed money with their Medicare payouts at an exponential rate over the next few decades. Somethings gotta give. This economy skewed towards the healthcare industry is just not sustainable, esp considering how much of a value transference industry it is with the numerous middle men who siphon incredible amounts of money from sick people like leeches.

[Camlost]

Easy way to get laid a lot is to be one of the only 3 guys in your class at nursing school.

[Jim]

I loved how the article points out that white men who move into female dominated professions still earn higher pay and move more quickly into managerial positions than men, and that the PTB are trying to figure out how to prevent this. I guess that "old boy's network" operates even where there aren't any "old boys"...

[CH]

"Easy way to get laid a lot is to be one of the only 3 guys in your class at nursing school."

only if you have game. being a beta in a sea of women is like throwing a hungry chihuahua into a house full of cats: he'll make a hell of a lot of cat friends before he eats one of them.

[Black Death]

The percentage of female medical students has risen from about 8% in 1965-66 to 48.3% in 2009-10.
https://www.aamc.org/download/170248/data/2010_table1.pdf

[RandomMedStudent]

Medical schools are now 50/50 male/female.
There was a precipitous decline in White male medical school applicants in the 90s. The economy was good and medicine was under attack from insurance companies and the government. My guess is that white males were most well poised to jump to fields like finance, which requires shorter schooling but more networking and social skills. White male applicants to med schools have recently surged somewhat due to the financial crisis, I believe.

I like male nurses. There is no reason why nurses should be female. In fact, nurses not being 100% female anymore produces a better dynamics and is good for everyone.

[Conquistador]

@ Drole Prole

The massive sums of money going into healthcare should be going towards young people. In any previous age they would be. Since the west drunk the leftist kool aid women, minorities, and the elderly, are now consuming all the value in the economy.

[Matt in RTP]

Healthcare is for betas. Real alphas go into finance and impregnate many women!!!!

On another note, is Half Sigma ever wrong?

Why hasn't some prestigious PE powerhouse proffered paper to pursue princely profits from parsing his potent powers of prognostication? Perhaps pusillanimous PC partners?

[RandomMedStudent]

Finance is definitely a very alpha field. In college, I noticed that the obnoxious alpha a-holes are almost 100% intent on getting into finance.

Doctors in general are more beta, but the field is prestigious enough to attract lots of affluent kids and some alphas. There are big differences between doctors and computer programmers. Doctors directly meet the people that consume their services, so professional image making is important. A few specialties do not involve direct patient care - pathology, anesthesiology, and radiology are prime examples. These specialties are low prestige and tend to be filled with the socially inept (people who do not mind low prestige or do not want to see patients). Alphas in medicine are drawn to the surgical specialties, orthopedic surgery and plastic surgery in particular (these are also the two highest paid specialties and are also very prestigious).

The old boys in medicine are overwhelmingly white males (as you might expect). Surgeons tend to be WASPs, whereas the more cerebral internal medicine sub-specialties (endocrinology, nephrology, etc) tend to be dominated by the Ashkenazim. Non clinical specialties (pathology, radiology, anesthesiology) are run by very down-to-earth people who tend to come from humble backgrounds (kinda like IT, I guess).

[RandomMedStudent]

What female-dominated fields have not yet seen significant influx of males?

I don't think I've yet seen a male secretary. I think virtually everyone prefers to have female secretary. With nurses, the hiring is done by large hospitals. But secretary hiring is more personal, so it is still very female dominated.

[Vic]

OK, I've seen some male nurses, (mostly black guys) and they seemed pretty straight. There have been a number of stories in recent years about male nurses killing their patients. And wasnt that asian guy who just went on a killing spree studying to be a male nurse? Maybe deep down they feel inadequate about doing a women's job. I mean trying to pick up a woman and telling her you're a nurse doesn't sound very alpha. On the other hand, most male secretaries and flight attendants seem gay.

[nebbish]

RandomMedStudent,

Be careful about dismissing the non-direct patient care specialties before you have finished your training. Dealing with crazy patients and their families as an intern or resident can immiserate you. If one can anticipate the future prestige and income of a subspecialized surgeon, it might be worth it. However, only a few of the internal medicine fields (e.g. cardiology, gastroenterology, +/- nephrology) can offer significant income or prestige. The non-direct patient care specialties have their own awful issues, but for an introvert, they're a lifeline. All of that said, if you can get it, go for dermatology. There are few dermatologic emergencies to roust you from your bed, and it's a wonderful entree to cash business like spas and botox. No other field is its equal.

[REMF]

Men are better nurses and better corpsmen.

[RandomMedStudent]

Nebbish,
I didn't intend to diss the non-direct patient care fields. I was stating an observation, since it is relevant to the discussion here. And indeed, there's probably no other occupation where a socially inept introvert can pull 200K~400K a year. I mean, no other field is like that. But what is true is true, and when I decide what field to get into, I will consider the prestige factor. Prestige is quite useful, especially for attracting females!

I've heard of an experiment run by a medical student. He would go to a bar, and then strike up a conversation with a girl. When asked what field he is going into, he'd state a field and look at the girl's response. If you say pathology, the girl is like "What's that?" If you say orthopedic surgery, the girl's pupils dilate and she sits a bit closer. There's a big difference.

All in all, I have to go into something I am a good fit in. Personally, I do not enjoy working with too many alphas. They are obnoxious. And I also do not enjoy dealing with people who are panicking or are going crazy (no Emergency Medicine or Psychiatry for me!). But I'd prefer to have patient interaction, so yes, Derm could be a good fit.

[nebbish]

RandomMedStudent,

The observations are perfectly valid, of course. I wouldn't dispute your assessment of relative prestige. I just wouldn't let that determine your course until you've actually experienced the fields in question and also know how competitive you are for the match. I know some very unhappy internists (different subspecialties) who are sorry they didn't go for radiology. Matching into orthopedics or derm is also not a nothing exercise. If you have any serious inclination towards a competitive field, consider making connections now and getting involved in research in that field. From what I've been told, matching into dermatology requires junior AOA, very high USMLE scores and connections.

[Jim]

I don't think I've ever seen a male receptionist. Their job is basically to sit there and look pretty, so a male wouldn't really work. I supoose if it was a business that primarily catered to gays it would, but I've never encountered one...

[Nietzschean]

I'm a male nursing student, second year. I'm in the process of a divorce from my wife of 11 years. She is also a nurse (RN). She made over 100K last year as a traveler working just 3-days a week. THAT is why I'm getting into this profession. The reason I mention the divorce is that since it's become known amongst my largely female classmates, I have had several of them (younger, including a 23-year-old) show interest. I'm 44. The 23-year-old even asked me out for drinks. I declined. But in any case, I find the profession very welcoming to males and most women I meet are quite impressed that I've chosen this profession.

[rob]

"Surgeons tend to be WASPs, whereas the more cerebral internal medicine sub-specialties (endocrinology, nephrology, etc) tend to be dominated by the Ashkenazim."

Jews tend to lack the visuospatial intelligence to be top-notch surgeons.