Most will recognize Rosie the Riveter from the iconic poster to recruit women into male-dominated fields during World War II. When men were drafted to serve overseas, women filled the roles they left behind — from factory work to shipbuilding to farming and selling war bonds.

The poster was created by J. Howard Miller as part of a government campaign to encourage the country to put aside gender norms and do what was best for the country.

And it worked.

Nevada might be able to learn a lesson from Rosie. The state faces critical shortages in nurses, teachers, and social and behavioral health professionals — and researchers at UNLV say the problem isn’t just numbers. It’s gender.

“We’re seeing fewer men entering these professions, and that has real implications for the size and sustainability of Nevada’s workforce,” says David Damore, political science professor and executive director of UNLV’s The Lincy Institute and Brookings Mountain West.

How Gender Gaps Weaken Nevada’s HEAL Pipeline

Damore and fellow researchers William E. Brown Jr., director of UNLV’s Brookings Mountain West, and Caitlin J. Saladino, senior director of research and development for The Lincy Institute and Brookings Mountain West, examined these implications in their recent policy brief, Nevada’s Healthcare and Education Workforce Pipelines: A Gendered Perspective. 

Funded by the Nevada Governor’s Office of Workforce Innovation, the report takes a closer look at how gender disparities shape the ability to fill jobs in health, education, administration, and literacy (HEAL) fields. Using data from the Nevada P-20 to Workforce Research Data System (NPWR), the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and earlier work published in Preparing Nevada’s Future Healthcare and Education Workforces, UNLV researchers found that men make up only about 22% of Nevada’s combined HEAL workforce.

Nevada’s pipeline, the brief concludes, “leaks” at nearly every stage: recruitment, degree completion, licensure/residency, and retention.

Credentialing and Early Pipeline Gaps

The imbalance starts early. Women earn far more credentials in education, healthcare, and social work — a divide that begins in high school Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs and widens through college.

“We’ve been doing workforce research for years,” says Damore, “but this time, the gender disparities in healthcare and education really jumped out.”

Both healthcare and education sectors struggle to pull in male students, a problem that starts early. “The doctors of 20 years from now are in elementary school today,” Damore says. “If we’re not aligning K–12 programs and career tech education with healthcare and teaching pathways, we’re missing the foundation.”

The state’s lack of structured credentialing pathways feeds that leak and Nevada doesn’t produce enough graduates to keep pace with workforce needs, the authors note. And because early recruitment is inconsistent, higher education programs still reflect traditional gender divides in health, education, administration, and literacy (HEAL) careers.

Post-Graduation, Licensure, and Residency Barriers

Even when students earn degrees, structural gaps prevent them from staying in the pipeline. “Nevada does a poor job on the post-certification, pre-licensing side,” Damore explains. “They finish their degree, then need to do a residency or supervised practicum. We don’t have enough of those slots.”

Brown adds that the shortage of placements has predictable consequences: “If we can’t offer that next step, they go to Arizona or California where they can finish training — and then they don’t come back.”

Licensing rules add another layer. 

“Licensing reciprocity is another issue,” Brown says. “Nevada makes it really hard for people from other states to work here, even if they’re already licensed elsewhere. The state legislature passed three licensing compacts passed last session, but most failed because entrenched interests don’t want competition.”

The result: Nevada loses in-state graduates and struggles to attract experienced workers from outside the state.

Cultural Stereotypes and Gendered Perceptions

Even if the pipeline were seamless, cultural barriers keep men from entering healthcare, K-12 education, and social work. These fields are still widely seen as “women’s work,” and the lack of male role models makes the perception even harder to break. “We’ve talked to students who’ve never had a male teacher,” Brown says. “If you never see someone like you in a profession, you’re less likely to imagine yourself there.”

Unlike STEM, where national initiatives have opened doors for women in male-dominated fields, there’s been little effort to encourage men into HEAL careers, Saladino notes. 

“We haven’t invested in encouraging men into health, education, administration, and literacy — even though their representation matters,” she says.

Supporting this is research from Richard Reeves — a UNLV Brookings Mountain West contributor and founding president of the American Institute for Boys and Men. His work finds that male teachers can boost boys’ sense of belonging and academic performance.

Cultural perceptions, however, are only part of the story. Practical challenges also push men away: lower pay than in male-dominated fields, heavy caseloads, and high burnout rates all make these professions less appealing. Together, these cultural and practical barriers limit Nevada’s ability to grow a diverse, balanced HEAL workforce.

Ways Nevada Can Address the Workforce Imbalance

Without new strategies, Nevada will continue to run in place — producing more graduates but never catching up with population growth and service needs, the UNLV researchers say. Their report outlines several solutions to encourage more men in K-12 education and healthcare occupations:

• Create Outreach and Mentorship Programs: Targeted outreach and mentorship programs for young men and boys would encourage entry into HEAL careers. Researchers also suggest expanding stackable credentials and apprenticeships so men can earn while they learn. 
• Establish a Commission on Boys and Men: Similar to Nevada’s existing women’s commission, the organization would be able to address male underrepresentation in education and health.
• Strengthen Education Pipeline and Licensing Pathways: Nevada can create policies that work to strengthen K-12 CTE pipelines so that they’re aligned with future health and education jobs. Also, if the state invests more in residencies and licensing pathways to retain graduates trained in Nevada.

Looking Forward

The study on gender discrepancy in HEAL fields is just one piece of a broader effort by The Lincy Institute and Brookings Mountain West to examine the root causes of Nevada’s workforce crisis — including pay gaps, barriers to licensing, education funding, and demographic shifts.

The work is aimed at guiding policymaker decisions on where to invest in producing, training, and retaining qualified professionals (of all genders) to meet the needs of its growing population, progress is attainable.

“Where we’ve invested, we’ve seen results,” Damore concludes. “The question is whether we’ll invest enough to scale.”