About 12.7% of registered nurses in the United States are men, which translates to roughly 448,000 male RNs out of 3.53 million total, according to the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data. That share has grown substantially over the past few decades, but nursing remains one of the most gender-skewed professions in healthcare.
How the Numbers Have Changed Over Time
In 1970, only 2.7% of registered nurses were men. For decades, the profession was almost entirely female, and career counselors rarely suggested nursing to young men. Growth was slow but steady through the late 20th century. By 2020, men made up 9.4% of the nursing workforce. Just two years later, that figure had climbed to 11.2%, and the most recent labor data now places it at 12.7%.
That recent acceleration is notable. The profession added a larger share of men between 2020 and 2025 than it did in some entire previous decades. Several factors are driving this: nursing salaries have risen, demand for nurses has surged, and cultural attitudes about men in caregiving roles have shifted, particularly among younger generations.
Where Male Nurses Tend to Work
Men are not evenly distributed across nursing specialties. They cluster in higher-acuity, more procedural areas. Emergency departments, intensive care units, and nurse anesthesia programs consistently have the highest concentrations of male nurses. Flight nursing and psychiatric nursing also tend to attract more men than specialties like labor and delivery or pediatric primary care.
Nurse anesthetists (CRNAs) represent one of the most advanced nursing roles, and men have historically made up a much larger share of that specialty than of nursing overall. The combination of high autonomy, technical skill, and top-tier pay appears to draw men who might otherwise have pursued other healthcare careers.
The Pay Gap Runs in an Unusual Direction
Unlike most professions where a gender pay gap disadvantages women, nursing presents a more complicated picture. In a nationwide sample of over 4,500 nurses, men earned an average of $79,688 per year compared to $73,090 for women, a difference of about $6,600 or 8.2%. That gap likely reflects several overlapping factors: men in nursing tend to gravitate toward higher-paying specialties, are more likely to work in hospital settings rather than outpatient clinics, and may negotiate starting salaries differently.
Interestingly, the gap nearly disappears when both groups hold a specialty certification. Male nurses with certification earned an average of $81,672, while certified female nurses earned $80,420. That narrows the difference to roughly $1,000 a year, suggesting that credentialing levels the playing field considerably.
Barriers That Keep the Numbers Low
Despite steady growth, several forces continue to discourage men from entering nursing. The most persistent is simple perception: the public still tends to picture a nurse as female, and that stereotype shapes everything from career advice to classroom dynamics. Research has found that career advisors rarely promote nursing to male high school students. Almost all men who do enter nursing have a family member already in the profession, suggesting that personal exposure matters more than institutional encouragement.
Gender bias within nursing education itself is another barrier. A 2016 study found that grading in written examinations favored female nursing students over male counterparts. Other research has documented that clinical instructors sometimes apply different standards to students based on gender, holding men to different expectations during hands-on training. For men already navigating an unfamiliar cultural environment, these experiences can push them toward other careers before they finish their degree.
There’s also the “masculinity” barrier, which operates most powerfully during adolescence. Teenage boys often dismiss nursing as an option before they ever seriously evaluate it. By the time many men reconsider, they’re already established in other fields, and going back to school for nursing requires significant financial and time commitment.
How the U.S. Compares Globally
The United States is not an outlier. As of the late 2000s, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Norway all had male nurse representation in the 10% to 11% range, very similar to the U.S. at that time. The pattern suggests that cultural forces discouraging men from nursing are not uniquely American but common across English-speaking and Western nations. Some countries in the Middle East and parts of Africa have higher proportions of male nurses, partly because cultural norms in those regions historically restricted women’s participation in the workforce, creating a different gender dynamic in healthcare.
What’s Driving the Recent Growth
The nursing profession as a whole is enormous. With nearly 4.7 million registered nurses nationwide, it is the largest healthcare profession in the country. The ongoing shortage of nurses, intensified by pandemic-era burnout and retirements, has created strong demand and rising wages. For men evaluating career options, nursing now offers job security, geographic flexibility, and salaries that compete with many four-year business or technical degrees, often with a shorter path to employment.
Visibility also matters. As more men enter the field, the cultural feedback loop weakens. Male nursing students see male preceptors. Patients encounter male nurses in every department. High school students see nursing promoted as a career without a gender qualifier. Each generation of men in nursing makes the next generation’s entry a little easier, which helps explain why the growth rate has accelerated rather than plateauing.