IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v70y2010i12p1874-1881.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Should I stay or should I go? Career change and labor force separation among registered nurses in the U.S

Author

Listed:
  • Nooney, Jennifer G.
  • Unruh, Lynn
  • Yore, Michelle M.

Abstract

Efforts to retain nurses within the profession are critical for resolving the global nursing shortage, but very little research explores the phenomenon of nursing workforce attrition in the U.S. This study is the first to simultaneously investigate the timing of attrition through survival analysis, the exit path taken (career change vs. labor force separation), and the major socioeconomic, family structure, and demographic variables predicting attrition in this country. Using nationally representative U.S. data from the 2004 National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses (NÂ =Â 29,472), we find that the rate of labor force separation is highest after the age of 60, a typical pattern for retirement. However, a non-trivial proportion of career change also occurs at older ages (50+ years old), and the rate of labor force separation begins to climb at relatively young ages (30-40 years old). Particularly strong predictors of early labor force separation include being married and providing care to dependents in the home (young children or elderly parents). Career change is predicted strongly by higher levels of education, male gender, and current enrollment in a non-nursing degree program. Having an Advanced Practice credential reduced the hazards of attrition for both exit paths. The results suggest a fruitful path for future research and a number of policy approaches to curbing nurse workforce attrition.

Suggested Citation

  • Nooney, Jennifer G. & Unruh, Lynn & Yore, Michelle M., 2010. "Should I stay or should I go? Career change and labor force separation among registered nurses in the U.S," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(12), pages 1874-1881, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:70:y:2010:i:12:p:1874-1881
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(10)00220-0
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Disney, Richard & Emmerson, Carl & Wakefield, Matthew, 2006. "Ill health and retirement in Britain: A panel data-based analysis," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 621-649, July.
    2. Rogowski, Jeannette & Karoly, Lynn, 2000. "Health insurance and retirement behavior: evidence from the health and retirement survey," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 529-539, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kristina Nyström & Gulzat Zhetibaeva Elvung, 2015. "New Firms as Employers: The Wage Penalty for Voluntary and Involuntary Job Switchers," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 29(4), pages 348-366, December.
    2. Leone, Claudia & Bruyneel, Luk & Anderson, Janet E. & Murrells, Trevor & Dussault, Gilles & Henriques de Jesus, Élvio & Sermeus, Walter & Aiken, Linda & Rafferty, Anne Marie, 2015. "Work environment issues and intention-to-leave in Portuguese nurses: A cross-sectional study," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 119(12), pages 1584-1592.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Iskhakov, Fedor, 2008. "Dynamic Programming Model of Health and Retirement," Memorandum 03/2008, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    2. Courtney C. Coile, 2015. "Economic Determinants Of Workers’ Retirement Decisions," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 830-853, September.
    3. Erkmen Giray Aslim, 2019. "The Relationship Between Health Insurance and Early Retirement: Evidence from the Affordable Care Act," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 45(1), pages 112-140, January.
    4. Brenda Gannon, 2005. "A dynamic analysis of disability and labour force participation in Ireland 1995–2000," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(9), pages 925-938, September.
    5. Hugo Benitez-Silva & Moshe Buchinsky & John Rust & Emine Boz & Joseph B. Nichols & Sharbani Roy & Ignez Tristao, 2005. "Health Status, Insurance, and Expenditures in the Transition from Work to Retirement," Department of Economics Working Papers 05-11, Stony Brook University, Department of Economics.
    6. Chatterji, Pinka & Joo, Heesoo & Lahiri, Kajal, 2017. "Diabetes and labor market exits: Evidence from the Health & Retirement Study (HRS)," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 9(C), pages 100-110.
    7. Eduardo Fé & Bruce Hollingsworth, 2016. "Short- and long-run estimates of the local effects of retirement on health," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 179(4), pages 1051-1067, October.
    8. Hernández-Quevedo, Cristina & Jones, Andrew M. & Rice, Nigel, 2008. "Persistence in health limitations: A European comparative analysis," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 1472-1488, December.
    9. Emmanuel Duguet & Christine Le Clainche, 2020. "The Socioeconomic and Gender Impacts of Health Events on Employment Transitions in France: A Panel Data Study," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 14(3), pages 449-483.
    10. John Karl Scholz & Ananth Seshadri, 2013. "Health Insurance and Retirement Decisions," Working Papers wp292, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    11. Pilar García-Gómez & Hans van Kippersluis & Owen O’Donnell & Eddy van Doorslaer, 2013. "Long-Term and Spillover Effects of Health Shocks on Employment and Income," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 48(4), pages 873-909.
    12. Kanika Kapur & Jeannette Rogowski, 2006. "Love or Money? Health Insurance and Retirement Among Married Couples," NBER Working Papers 12273, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Maja Adena & Michal Myck, 2013. "Poverty and Transitions in Health," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1319, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    14. Gimenez-Nadal, J. Ignacio & Molina, Jose Alberto, 2015. "Health status and the allocation of time: Cross-country evidence from Europe," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 188-203.
    15. Macchioni Giaquinto, Annarita & Jones, Andrew M. & Rice, Nigel & Zantomio, Francesca, 2021. "Labour supply and informal care responses to health shocks within couples: evidence from the UKHLS," GLO Discussion Paper Series 806, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    16. David Candon, 2019. "The joint effect of health shocks and eligibility for social security on labor supply," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 20(7), pages 969-988, September.
    17. Sarah Brown & Jennifer Roberts & Karl Taylor, 2010. "Reservation wages, labour market participation and health," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 173(3), pages 501-529, July.
    18. Hugo Benítez-Silva & Richard Disney & Sergi Jiménez-Martín, 2010. "Disability, capacity for work and the business cycle: an international perspective [Has the boom in incapacity benefit claimant numbers passed its peak?]," Economic Policy, CEPR;CES;MSH, vol. 25(63), pages 483-536.
    19. Kuhn, Andreas & Staubli, Stefan & Wuellrich, Jean-Philippe & Zweimüller, Josef, 2020. "Fatal attraction? Extended unemployment benefits, labor force exits, and mortality," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    20. Teresa Bago d'Uva & Eddy Van Doorslaer & Maarten Lindeboom & Owen O'Donnell, 2008. "Does reporting heterogeneity bias the measurement of health disparities?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(3), pages 351-375, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:70:y:2010:i:12:p:1874-1881. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.