How Women’s Roles are Changing within the Healthcare Sector

<p>Since 1990, women have become increasingly concentrated within the ranks of healthcare practitioners. A look at the data shows that Registered Nurses don&rsquo;t explain the trend. To identify many of the women finding work in this field, you have to look for the white lab coats.</p>

Author: Steven Pennington

There has been much written about why men aren’t more rapidly shifting into fast-growing women-dominated occupations.  In short, despite these occupations’ rapid expansion, they often require different skills, pay less, and may be perceived as “women’s work.” Shifting gender-related perceptions within nursing have proven to be a point of particular interest. To this end, the monthly Current Population Survey (CPS) provides some helpful data for investigating this question, as well as women’s more broadly shifting roles in the healthcare sector.

The number of healthcare practitioners across the country has increased rapidly since 1990, growing 105% (or by 54 million individuals). Both nationally and in North Carolina, women make up a majority of these workers. In 2017, there were about 105 million healthcare practitioners in the US, 75% of which were women. And women’s share of these positions has increased slightly since 1990, when 72% of healthcare practitioners were women.

However, this national trend was not driven by Registered Nurses, who made up 37% of all healthcare practitioners in 2017. In fact, women’s concentration in Registered Nurses positions declined from 94% in 1990 to 90% in 2017.

The biggest reason for this further shift toward women among healthcare practitioners: Physicians and Surgeons, which constituted another 12% of healthcare practitioners in 2017. In 1990, 19% of Physicians and Surgeons were women. By 2017, nearly 40% of Physicians and Surgeons were women.

So, while they are still overwhelmingly filled by women, Registered Nurses positions have been increasingly filled by men over the last few decades. However, perhaps more significant is women’s substantial push into Physician and Surgeon jobs. And of course, the good news for all healthcare practitioners in North Carolina is that this group of occupations is projected to be among the fastest growing in the state.

Citation:

Miriam King, Steven Ruggles, J. Trent Alexander, Sarah Flood, Katie Genadek, Matthew B. Schroeder, Brandon Trampe, and Rebecca Vick. Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, Current Population Survey: Version 3.0. [Machine-readable database]. Minneapolis, MN: Minnesota Population Center [producer and distributor], 2010.

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