Gender Equality among Nurses: Promotion Strategies for Gender Equality

Nurses have a special position in hospitals due to their specialized, valuable and stressful job. Gender inequality together with the concerns about health inequalities need attention. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate gender equality among nurses in Fars province of Iran and to provide solutions to improve gender equality.

This quantitative-qualitative study was conducted in 2020. In the quantitative phase, the study population included all nurses employed in public and private hospitals of Fars province as well as all nursing students at Fars universities during 2011-2018. In the qualitative phase, 16 semi-structured interviews were conducted. Using SPSS version 23.0, the quantitative data was analyzed by applying descriptive statistics and Chi-squared test. Qualitative data were analyzed with Max QDA by using the framework method.

The majority of hospital nurses (79.81%) and nursing students (65.86%) were female. There were statistically significant relationships between gender and hospital, the type of employment, university, and the type of degree (P=0.00). In addition, 3 main themes including culture building, nursing education and employment as well as 17 sub-themes were identified to improve gender equality among nurses.

Fars province faces challenges such as gender inequality among nurses and the shortage of male nurses. It is essential to invest in the development and implementation of strategies and executive solutions for raising and maintaining the prestige of nursing profession and training qualified nurses with a focus on creating healthcare job opportunities for men and women equally.