Will increased wages increase nurses' working hours in the health care sector?

Erik Magnus Sæther ()
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Erik Magnus Sæther: Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research, Postal: Gaustadalléen 21, N-, 0349 Oslo

No 2004:7, HERO Online Working Paper Series from University of Oslo, Health Economics Research Programme

Abstract: Many registered nurses (RNs) in Norway work part-time, or in non-health jobs. The nurses’ trade organizations claim that a wage increase will increase the short-term labor supply in health care. This paper is an attempt to identify the effects of job-type specific wage increases through policy simulations on micro data. The individual’s labor supply decision can be considered as a choice from a set of discrete alternatives (job packages). These job packages are characterized by attributes such as hours of work, sector specific wages and other sector specific aspects of the jobs. The unique data set covers all RNs registered in Norway and their families. The spouses’ incomes and age of the children are vital when estimating the labor supply of this profession. For married females the results indicate job type specific wage elasticities for hours of work of 0.17 in hospitals and 0.39 in primary care. The total hours worked in health and non-health jobs are actually predicted to be slightly reduced, but the change is not significantly different from zero. Single females are somewhat more responsive to wage changes than married ones.

Keywords: Registered nurses; discrete choice; non-convex budget sets; labor supply; sector-specific wages (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C25 I10 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2009-06-14
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dcm, nep-hea and nep-lab
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