Adia Harvey Wingfield, professor of sociology in Arts & Sciences
With a rapidly aging population, longer life spans, and few care facilities in many rural areas, the demand for nurses is high, and the profession has deliberately sought to recruit more men.
At the same time, fields that have traditionally been male-dominated—especially manufacturing and construction—have been hit hard over the years, and especially since the 2008 recession.
Consequently, some have hoped men would be attracted to nursing given that it is a field that offers stable, well-paying work in a growing industry. Yet nursing still remains predominantly female and white.
While many have focused on the barriers to getting men in general to enter nursing, my research shows that black men, who are drastically underrepresented in nursing, may in fact be the group of men most motivated to enter the field, even despite an often racist environment.
Read the full piece in Slate.