There was a gap for hospital nurses, $3,783, and an even bigger one, $7,678, for nurses in outpatient settings.

Men out-earned women in every specialty except orthopedics, with the gap ranging from $3,792 in chronic care to $17,290 for nurse anesthetists.

While the study didn’t address the reasons for persistent gaps in pay, it’s possible that men are better at negotiating raises and promotions or that they are less likely than women to take extended breaks from the labor force to care for young children or aging parents, said Patricia Davidson, dean of the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing in Baltimore, Maryland.

Many women are drawn to nursing at least in part by the flexibility, noted Davidson, who wasn’t involved in the study. With shift work and opportunities to advance while working nontraditional hours, nursing should be far better suited to balancing a career and family obligations than many other professions, she told Reuters Health.

“It’s a real indictment that this issue of gender disparity is prevalent in nursing where it’s predominantly female,” said Davidson. “In Wall Street or Silicon Valley people can dismiss it because it’s a culture that’s not known to be accommodating – a male-dominated work environment where it’s stacked against them – but when you see this inequity in nursing it speaks to a larger problem.”

It’s also possible that the study exposed a gender difference in career choices, rather than a genuine lack of equal pay for equal work, said Linda Aiken, a nursing and health policy researcher at the University of Pennsylvania.

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