IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/oslohe/2004_007.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Will increased wages increase nurses' working hours in the health care sector?

Author

Listed:
  • Sæther, Erik Magnus

    (Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research)

Abstract

Many registered nurses (RNs) in Norway work part-time, or in non-health jobs. The nurses’ trade organizations claim that a wage increase will increase the short-term labor supply in health care. This paper is an attempt to identify the effects of job-type specific wage increases through policy simulations on micro data. The individual’s labor supply decision can be considered as a choice from a set of discrete alternatives (job packages). These job packages are characterized by attributes such as hours of work, sector specific wages and other sector specific aspects of the jobs. The unique data set covers all RNs registered in Norway and their families. The spouses’ incomes and age of the children are vital when estimating the labor supply of this profession. For married females the results indicate job type specific wage elasticities for hours of work of 0.17 in hospitals and 0.39 in primary care. The total hours worked in health and non-health jobs are actually predicted to be slightly reduced, but the change is not significantly different from zero. Single females are somewhat more responsive to wage changes than married ones.

Suggested Citation

  • Sæther, Erik Magnus, 2009. "Will increased wages increase nurses' working hours in the health care sector?," HERO Online Working Paper Series 2004:7, University of Oslo, Health Economics Research Programme.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:oslohe:2004_007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.hero.uio.no/publicat/2004/HERO2004_7.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul van den Noord & Terje Hagen & Tor Iversen, 1998. "The Norwegian Health Care System," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 198, OECD Publishing.
    2. Hirsch, Barry T. & Schumacher, Edward J., 1995. "Monopsony power and relative wages in the labor market for nurses," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 443-476, October.
    3. Aaberge, Rolf & Colombino, Ugo & Strom, Steinar, 1999. "Labour Supply in Italy: An Empirical Analysis of Joint Household Decisions, with Taxes and Quantity Constraints," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(4), pages 403-422, July-Aug..
    4. Phillips, V. L., 1995. "Nurses' labor supply: Participation, hours of work, and discontinuities in the supply function," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(5), pages 567-582, December.
    5. repec:bla:scandj:v:97:y:1995:i:4:p:635-59 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Emanuela Antonazzo & Anthony Scott & Diane Skatun & Robert. F. Elliott, 2003. "The labour market for nursing: a review of the labour supply literature," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(6), pages 465-478, June.
    7. Jan Erik Askildsen & Badi H. Baltagi & Tor Helge Holmås, 2003. "Wage policy in the health care sector: a panel data analysis of nurses' labour supply," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(9), pages 705-719, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Sæther, Erik Magnus, 2009. "Nurses’ labor supply with endogenous choice of care level and shift type A nested discrete choice model with nonlinear income," HERO Online Working Paper Series 2004:9, University of Oslo, Health Economics Research Programme.
    2. 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.
    3. Paul Frijters & Michael A. Shields & Stephen Wheatley Price, 2007. "Investigating the quitting decision of nurses: panel data evidence from the british national health service," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(1), pages 57-73, January.
    4. Di Tommaso, M.L. & Strøm, S. & Sæther, E.M., 2009. "Nurses wanted: Is the job too harsh or is the wage too low?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 748-757, May.
    5. Barbara Eberth & Robert F. Elliott & Diane Skåtun, 2016. "Pay or conditions? The role of workplace characteristics in nurses’ labor supply," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 17(6), pages 771-785, July.
    6. Hanel, Barbara & Kalb, Guyonne & Scott, Anthony, 2014. "Nurses’ labour supply elasticities: The importance of accounting for extensive margins," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 94-112.
    7. Schweri, Juerg & Hartog, Joop, 2017. "Do wage expectations predict college enrollment? Evidence from healthcare," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 135-150.
    8. Divine Ikenwilo & Anthony Scott, 2007. "The effects of pay and job satisfaction on the labour supply of hospital consultants," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(12), pages 1303-1318.
    9. Divine Ikenwilo & Anthony Scott, 2007. "The effects of pay and job satisfaction on the labour supply of hospital consultants," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(12), pages 1303-1318, December.
    10. Rowena Crawford & Richard Disney & Carl Emmerson, 2015. "The short run elasticity of National Health Service nurses’ labour supply in Great Britain," IFS Working Papers W15/04, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    11. Schweri, Juerg & Hartog, Joop, 2014. "Do wage expectations influence the decision to enroll in nursing college?," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100542, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    12. Pora, Pierre, 2025. "The supply of nursing labor in French hospitals: Outflows, part-time work and motherhood," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    13. Denise Doiron & Glenn Jones, 2006. "Nurses' Retention and Hospital Characteristics in New South Wales," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 82(256), pages 11-29, March.
    14. Sæther, Erik Magnus, 2009. "Compensating differentials for nurses," HERO Online Working Paper Series 2004:10, University of Oslo, Health Economics Research Programme.
    15. T. Kankaanranta & P. Rissanen, 2009. "The labor supply of registered nurses in Finland: the effect of wages and working conditions," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 10(2), pages 167-178, May.
    16. Simon Condliffe & Charles R. Link & Sezin Zengin Farias Martinez, 2020. "Factors Affecting The Labor Supply Decisions Of Registered Nurses," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 38(1), pages 127-138, January.
    17. Askildsen, Jan Erik & Baltagi, Badi H. & Holmås, Tor Helge, 2002. "Will Increased Wages Reduce Shortage of Nurses? A Panel Data Analysis of Nurses’ Labour Supply," Working Papers in Economics 21/02, University of Bergen, Department of Economics.
    18. Dao, Ngoc, 2024. "Federal minimum wage expansion to homecare workers: Employment and income effects," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    19. Edward J. Schumacher, "undated". "Relative Wages and the Returns to Education in the Labor Market for Registered Nurses," Working Papers 9601, East Carolina University, Department of Economics.
    20. Denise Doiron & Glenn Jones, 2004. "Nurses' retention and hospital characteristics in New South Wales, CHERE Discussion Paper No 52," Discussion Papers 52, CHERE, University of Technology, Sydney.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C25 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models; Discrete Regressors; Proportions; Probabilities
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:hhs:oslohe:2004_007. 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: Kristi Brinkmann Lenander (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/heuiono.html .

    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.