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Too few doctors or too low wages? Labor supply of health care professionals in China

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  • Qin, Xuezheng
  • Li, Lixing
  • Hsieh, Chee-Ruey

Abstract

This paper estimates the labor supply functions for health care professionals in China using Census-based data in 2005. The rapid economic growth and population aging in China led to a substantial increase in the demand for health care services and the derived demand for health care professionals in recent years. However, the increase in the supply of doctors and nurses lags behind the growth in demand, raising the question of whether the excess demand should be met by expanding the health care manpower or by inducing the existing personnel to work more hours through wage increase. Our findings indicate that wage rate adjustment has a significant impact on the length of working time among the self-employed practitioners (with an estimated short-run elasticity of 0.575), while the labor supply of hospital employees is inelastic due to their fixed payment scheme. Instead, hours worked in the employee group are related to non-wage factors such as asset holdings and the hospital ownership type. An important policy implication of our study is that adjustments of labor compensation methods and hospital ownership structure are potentially effective approaches for coping with the excess demand for health care professionals and improving the quality of health care in China.

Suggested Citation

  • Qin, Xuezheng & Li, Lixing & Hsieh, Chee-Ruey, 2013. "Too few doctors or too low wages? Labor supply of health care professionals in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 150-164.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:chieco:v:24:y:2013:i:c:p:150-164
    DOI: 10.1016/j.chieco.2012.12.002
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    3. Ze Chen & Yuan Wang & Yanjun Guan & Michael Jie Guo & Rong Xu, 2023. "Long‐term effect of childhood pandemic experience on medical major choice: Evidence from the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in China," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(5), pages 1120-1147, May.
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    5. Kang Wu & Ruonan Wang & Yuechi Zhang & Rangke Wu & Yanting He & Bei Li & Yili Zhang, 2023. "The Influence of New-Type Urbanization and Environmental Pollution on Public Health: A Spatial Durbin Model Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(23), pages 1-23, November.
    6. Zhang, Tingting & Yan, Xiangbin & Wang, William Yu Chung & Chen, Qin, 2021. "Unveiling physicians’ personal branding strategies in online healthcare service platforms," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    7. Huanhuan Jia & Jianxing Yu & Tianyu Feng & Liangwen Ning & Peng Cao & Panpan Shang & Shang Gao & Xihe Yu, 2022. "Factors Influencing Medical Personnel to Work in Primary Health Care Institutions: An Extended Theory of Planned Behavior," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(5), pages 1-15, February.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Health care professionals; Labor supply; Wage elasticity; China;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets
    • J44 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Professional Labor Markets and Occupations

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