Medical care employment in the United States, 1968 to 1993: The importance of health sector jobs for African Americans and women

Objectives. The purpose of this study was to elucidate the social and economic impact of health sector employment. Methods. US medical care employment was analyzed for each year between 1968 and 1993, with data from the March Current Population Survey. Results. Between 1968 and 1993, medical care employment grew from 4.32 million to 11.40 million persons, accounting for 5.7% of all jobs in 1968 and 8.4% in 1993. Today, one seventh of employed women work in medical care: they hold 78% of medical care jobs. One fifth of all employed African-American women work in medical care. African Americans hold 15.5% of jobs in the health sector: they hold 24.1% of the jobs in nursing homes, 15.9% of the jobs in hospitals, but only 5.6% of the jobs in practitioners' offices. Hispanics constitute 6.4% of medical care employees. Real wages rose 25% to 50% between 1968 and 1993 for most health occupations. Wages of registered nurses rose 86%; physicians' incomes rose 22%. Wages of nursing home workers were far lower than those of comparable hospital workers, and the gap has widened. In 1993, 11.1% of all medical care workers lacked health insurance and 597 000 lived in poverty. Conclusions. Hospital cuts and the continuing neglect of long-term care exacerbate unemployment and poverty among women and African Americans.