Substantial Gender Gap in NP Salaries
No one will be surprised to learn that preliminary data from the
2009 National Salary and Workplace Survey of Nurse Practitioners show that NPs who are women make less than male NPs, right? The shocker is the size of the disparity.
Based on 1,793 survey responses so far, the average salary for NPs who are women is $87,866 ($85,000 median); and for those who are men, it's $104,009 ($98,000 median). That means NPs who are women currently make 15.5% less than male NPs. Using wage averages from past surveys, it looks like the gender wage gap is getting worse: The gap was 8.7% in 2007 and 11.7% in 2005. ([men's wage - women's wage]/men's wage=x)
With a little more math, we see that the gender wage disparity for NPs is still less than that for the general population. The ratio of women's and men's median (note the switch from means to medians) NP salaries in 2009 is 86.7%. According to the Institute for Women's Policy Research, the ratio of all women's and men's weekly earnings in 2008 was 79.9%. (women's wage/men's wage=x)
NPs' job choices account for the difference, at least superficially. In general, a higher percentage of male NPs are employed in all but one of the highest average salary NP job settings: aesthetics ($110,125; about equal men and women), mental health ($101,213; 7% of men, 4% of women), emergency department ($100, 450; 11% of men, 4% of women) and other hospital settings ($92,760; 25% of men, 14% of women).
Also, more than 9% of male NPs own their own practices as compared with 3% of NPs who are women. And according to our 1,793 respondents, practice owners make $122,134 on average to $88,313 for NPs who work for someone else.
If you haven't filled out the survey yet, please do as soon as possible. The deadline is September 30. The more responses we get, the more representative the results will be.