---
title: "Could Adding More Men Ease the Nation’s Nursing Woes?"
url: "https://arizonacollege.edu/blog/could-adding-more-men-ease-the-nations-nursing-woes/"
type: post
date_published: 2022-05-09
date_modified: 2025-08-01
schema:
  @type: Article
language: en-US
word_count: 2098
reading_time: 11 min
canonical: "https://arizonacollege.edu/blog/could-adding-more-men-ease-the-nations-nursing-woes/"
featured_image: "https://arizonacollege.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screen-Shot-2022-05-09-at-10.04.03-AM.png"
categories:
  - Newsroom
---

# Could Adding More Men Ease the Nation’s Nursing Woes?

_[Las Vegas campus](https://www.arizonacollege.edu/las-vegas-nursing-school/) student, Johnathon Ceasar, shares with US News and World Report why nursing is the right path for him. _

---

## The share of men in the strained U.S. nursing corps has ticked up in recent years. Here’s why the pandemic could fuel a further increase.

By 
[Steven Ross Johnson](https://www.usnews.com/topics/author/steven-ross-johnson),
[US News & World Report](https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2022-04-28/could-adding-more-men-help-solve-the-nations-nursing-woes)

_April 28, 2022, at 12:58 p.m._

Jonathan Caesar always thought he would follow in his brother’s footsteps by
pursuing a career as an attorney in 
[Las Vegas](https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/nevada/clark-county)
. But he began to have a change of heart a few years ago, when he started to
develop a greater interest in human anatomy while training in mixed martial
arts.

“We have [auto] mechanics, and you can put so much work into cars,” Caesar
says. “Why wouldn’t you want to know the inner workings of the body and take
care of the most important vessel on earth?”

As a male looking to enter the nursing profession, Caesar is an outlier, but
he’s not alone: Now in his third year as a student at
[Arizona College of Nursing’s Las Vegas campus](https://www.arizonacollege.edu/las-vegas-nursing-school/)
, Caesar says he’s noticed more men in the student body at his school than there
were when he began, with the number in his own cohort growing from just himself
and two others initially to now six or seven.

That type of uptick bodes well for a profession that is overwhelmingly made up
of women, yet has seen a slowly rising share of men in its ranks over the past
decade. Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates just
[8.9%](https://www.bls.gov/cps/aa2011/cpsaat11.htm) of the country’s 2.7 million
registered nurses in 2011 were male. By 2015, men accounted for 
[10.6%](https://www.bls.gov/cps/aa2015/cpsaat11.htm) of a workforce
approximately 3 million strong.

Last year, the data indicates, [13%](https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm) of
the country’s 3.2 million registered nurses were male.

---

## Share of Male Registered Nurses

The percentage of male registered nurses in the U.S. has slowly increased over
the last decade.

![Male Nurse Shortage Graphic](https://arizonacollege.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screen-Shot-2022-05-09-at-10.04.03-AM.png)

Chart: U.S. News & World Report,  Source:
[Bureau of Labor Statistics Current Population Survey](https://www.bls.gov/cps/tables.htm#empstat)

Still, experts say more needs to be done to increase male representation in a
profession grappling with shortages and stressors exacerbated by the COVID-19
pandemic.

“Men have been historically underrepresented in the nursing profession, and the
nursing workforce should reflect the patient population,” says Ernest Grant,
president of the 
[American Nurses Association](https://www.nursingworld.org/ana/leadership-and-governance/board-of-directors/)
. “Encouraging more men to enter the nursing profession can help address the
current nursing shortage crisis by not only increasing the quantity of nurses,
but also the quality of patient care. More men in nursing provides a more
diverse group of health care providers and advocates for patients across all
genders and ethnic and racial backgrounds.”

Jason Mott, an associate professor and director of the pre-licensure program at
the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh’s College of Nursing, agrees that
“recruiting more men into nursing could ease the nursing shortage.”

“Nursing is typically not a career choice that is offered to men,” Mott says,
and consequently, “most of the females who want to do nursing are already doing
it.” About 14% of entry-level baccalaureate nursing program graduates were male
in 2020, according to data from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.
That marked the same percentage as in 2015, though higher than the roughly 11%
in 2010.

Scott Kelnhofer, executive director of the 
[American Association for Men in Nursing](https://www.aamn.org/), says the
average percentage of men enrolled in the nation’s largest undergraduate nursing
school programs is between 13% and 15%, based on self-reported data shared by
several of those schools. “Compared to 10 years ago, I would say it’s definitely
on the increase,” Kelnhofer says. But “it’s gradual – we’re not seeing any
seismic shifts.”

At the same time, there are early signs that the public attention on nurses
during the COVID-19 pandemic has helped spark greater interest among more
people, including men, in pursuing a nursing career. Kelnhofer says some of the
country’s larger nursing schools have reported increases as high as 30% in the
number of men enrolling in their programs in recent years. He says media
coverage over the past two years that focused on the plight of nurses during the
pandemic, along with the
[economic opportunities](https://khn.org/news/article/hospital-staffing-wars-bonuses-competition-for-health-workers/)
within the field due to labor shortages, likely has encouraged more individuals
to look at nursing as a possible career.

“As people start to look at employment opportunities moving forward, I think
nursing is going to be seen as a very good option,” Kelnhofer says. Jennifer
Dotzenrod, associate dean for enrollment management and student affairs for the
Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing in Baltimore, says though it’s not
clear at this point whether the pandemic is directly fueling an increase at the
highly-rated graduate school, the proportion of men enrolled there grew from
less than 10% in the fall of 2018 to nearly 14% by the fall of 2021.

“We do have more men and women applying than we did a few years ago, and those
percentages are going up,” Dotzenrod says.

Patrick Robinson, who recently served as provost and senior vice president of
academic affairs for Arizona College, which has nursing campuses in 
[eight states](https://www.arizonacollege.edu/), says the school received an
increase in inquiries about enrollment and programs since the start of the
pandemic, which he attributes partially to the public attention nurses have
received for their work on the front lines.

“We’re making progress, but not a lot,” Robinson says. “There are many schools
who really are looking at men as a potential way to increase their enrollment
and to increase the diversity of the workforce.”

---

## 󠀁**The Nightingale Effect**󠁿

For more than 100 years, the nursing profession and nursing education have been
shaped by the principles introduced by Florence Nightingale, whom many credit
for ushering in the modern era of nursing.

But while 
[Nightingale’s reforms](https://time.com/5835150/florence-nightingale-legacy-nurses/)
 helped bring about a greater focus within health care on quality and safety,
some would contend aspects of her approach – including the exclusion of men from
the nursing school she founded in 1860 – helped create the gender perceptions
found within the profession. Previously, there had been a 
[long history of men working as nurses](https://www.bmj.com/content/373/bmj.n1232)
, including as part of religious orders.

“Even though she did some really great things, some of the things she did really
hurt the nursing profession, which has continued,” says Mott, the University of
Wisconsin–Oshkosh professor.

Mott, who also serves as president-elect of the American Association for Men in
Nursing, says many of the challenges to recruiting more men into the nursing
field involve breaking long-held perceptions around gender that have hindered
many from viewing nursing as their first career choice. For many male nurses, he
says, the job marks a second career after they previously worked in a nonmedical
profession.

Over the past few years, Mott says, the American Association for Men in Nursing
has worked with middle schools and high schools as part of the organization’s “
[Engaging the Future RN](https://www.aamn.org/futurn-teaching-materials)”
campaign, with male nurses giving presentations to students about pursuing a
career in nursing.

“One of the biggest barriers is men thinking nursing is just not an option for
them,” Mott says.

Grant, of the American Nurses Association, says increasing racial and gender
diversity within the nursing workforce has been a key priority for him since he
began serving as president of the association in 2019. The first man elected to
the role, he has spoken to kids at grade schools about what it takes to be a
nurse, in the hopes of encouraging more boys to think of nursing as an option
and helping to break down the stereotype of nursing as a profession for women.

While that stigma has lessened over the years, Grant says the fact that men
still make up such a small share of the nursing workforce shows more work needs
to be done to improve gender equity.

“I myself am African American, 6 feet, 6 [inches tall], so I’m probably not
what you think about as your typical nurse,” Grant says. “But when I go into a
classroom and someone says, ‘He’s that big and that tall and he can be a nurse,’
maybe they’ll believe they can be one as well.”

## 󠀁**A Pandemic Push?**󠁿

Public opinion of nurses was already high before the pandemic, but the
profession became even more favorable during the first year of COVID-19, as
nurses risked their own safety and that of their families to care for patients
infected with the highly contagious coronavirus. In 2020, nurses were once again
No. 1 in
[ Gallup’s annual ranking of professions for having high honesty and ethics](https://news.gallup.com/poll/388649/military-brass-judges-among-professions-new-image-lows.aspx)
, but received their highest-ever rating at 89%. In 2021, nurses were still
first at 81%.

“The pandemic has had kind of a twofold effect,” Robinson says. “First, it has
highlighted the critical nature of nursing in society in a way that we probably
didn’t have before, but at the same time, we are losing our colleagues at an
alarming rate.”

Indeed, hospitals around the country have faced 
[nursing shortages during the pandemic](https://www.npr.org/2021/08/10/1026577164/hospitals-face-a-shortage-of-nurses-as-covid-cases-soar)
, with heavy workloads and high stress 
[fueling burnout](https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2021-11-15/us-faces-crisis-of-burned-out-health-care-workers)
. Survey results released last year by the
[ American Association of Critical Care Nurses](https://www.aacn.org/newsroom/hear-us-out-campaign-reports-nurses-covid-19-reality)
 found 66% of more than 6,000 nurses said their experiences during the pandemic
had caused them to consider leaving the field.

Federal data also indicates the country’s number of registered nurses dropped by
close to 2% from 2020 to 2021, coinciding with the male share of the profession
rising slightly and coming as
[women in the U.S. workforce have been hit particularly hard by the pandemic](https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/nurses-brunt-pandemic-covid-19-women/607659/)
.

Still, Grant says any uptick in men enrolling in nursing school would speak to
an overall increase in demand seen at many programs across the country over the
past several years. According to the American Association of Colleges of
Nursing, student enrollment in entry-level baccalaureate nursing programs
increased by 
[3.3% in 2021](https://www.aacnnursing.org/News-Information/Press-Releases/View/ArticleId/25183/Nursing-Schools-See-Enrollment-Increases-in-Entry-Level-Programs)
, continuing roughly two decades of growth.

Hurdles remain to boosting the workforce in general: With institutions strapped
by limiting factors like budget cuts, and faculty shortages, more than 
[90,000 qualified applications](https://www.aacnnursing.org/News-Information/Press-Releases/View/ArticleId/25183/Nursing-Schools-See-Enrollment-Increases-in-Entry-Level-Programs)
 for various levels of programs were rejected at nursing schools in the U.S.
last year, according to the AACN. Grant says many schools have been forced to
put prospective applicants on wait lists for one to two years due to a lack of
available educators.

Yet “from what I am seeing and reading and hearing from deans and directors of
nursing programs across the country, I don’t see the pandemic as being a
deterrent,” he says. “If anything, it’s making men look a little bit more at the
profession as people realize what it is that nurses do.”

For his part, Caesar – the nursing student in
[Las Vegas](https://www.arizonacollege.edu/las-vegas-nursing-school/) – says the
pandemic has motivated him to continue with his studies in order to start
working with patients, which he feels will be his way of making a meaningful
contribution during the crisis.

“I know I’m on the right path and I’m not going to stop,” Caesar says. “The
pandemic had impacted me, but in a positive way.”

**Categories:** Newsroom