How to make rural jobs more attractive to health workers. Findings from a discrete choice experiment in Tanzania

Julie Riise

No 15/08, Working Papers in Economics from University of Bergen, Department of Economics

Abstract: The geographical imbalance of the health workforce in Tanzania represents a serious problem when it comes to delivering crucial health services to a large share of the population. This study provides new quantitative information about how to make jobs in rural areas more attractive to newly educated clinical officers. A unique data set stemming from a discrete choice experiment with clinical officer finalists in Tanzania is applied. The results show that offering continuing education after a certain period of service is one of the most powerful recruitment instruments the authorities have available. Increased salaries and hardship allowances will also substantially increase recruitment in rural areas. Offers of decent housing and good infrastructure, including the provision of equipment, will increase recruitment to rural remote areas but not as much as higher wages and offers of education. Women are less responsive to pecuniary incentives and are more concerned with factors that directly allow them to do a good job, while those with parents living in a remote rural area are generally less responsive to the proposed policies. When the willingness to help other people is a strong motivating force, policies that improve the conditions for helping people appear particularly effective.

Keywords: Human resources for health; Discrete choice experiments; Tanzania (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C25 I18 J33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2008-08-23
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://ekstern.filer.uib.no/svf/2008/wp15-08.pdf Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: How to make rural jobs more attractive to health workers. Findings from a discrete choice experiment in Tanzania (2011)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:bergec:2008_015

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers in Economics from University of Bergen, Department of Economics Institutt for økonomi, Universitetet i Bergen, Postboks 7802, 5020 Bergen, Norway. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kjell Erik Lommerud ().