Underpaid or Overpaid? Wage Analysis for Nurses Using Job and Worker Attributes

Barry Hirsch () and Edward J. Schumacher ()
Additional contact information
Edward J. Schumacher: Trinity University

No 3833, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: The nursing labor market presents an apparent puzzle. Hospitals report chronic shortages, yet standard wage analysis shows that nursing wages have increased over time and greatly exceed those received by other college-educated women. This paper addresses this puzzle. Data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) are matched with detailed job content descriptors from the Occupational Information Network (O*NET). Nursing jobs require higher levels of skills and more difficult working conditions than do jobs for other college educated workers. A standard CPS-only wage regression shows a registered nurse (RN) wage advantage of .22 log points compared to a pooled male/female group of college-educated workers. Control for O*NET job attributes reduces the RN gap to .08, while an arguably preferable nonparametric estimator produces a wage gap estimate close to zero. We conclude that nurses receive compensation close to long-run opportunity costs, narrowing if not resolving the RN wage-shortage puzzle.

Keywords: job attributes; wage differentials; nursing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 J31 J44 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2008-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published - published in: Southern Economic Journal, 2012, 78 (4), 1096-1119.

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp3833.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Underpaid or Overpaid? Wage Analysis for Nurses Using Job and Worker Attributes (2012)
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:iza:izadps:dp3833

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().