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Can Wages Explain the Shortage of Specialist Nurses in the Swedish Health Sector?

Björk, Henrik LU (2014) NEKP01 20141
Department of Economics
Abstract (Swedish)
There is a shortage of nurses in Sweden, especially specialist nurses. The magnitude of the problem is expected to increase in the near and distant future due to retiring nurses and an expected increase in the demand for health services due to an ageing population in Sweden. In this thesis it is examined whether the shortage of specialist nurses can be explained by the current economic incentives for general nurses to get specialized. It is done by performing econometric analysis on a data material covering all nurses employed by the county council located most south in Sweden, Region Skåne. It cannot be proved that economic incentives are negative and thus not too low. However, the regressions estimating specialist nurse wage premiums are... (More)
There is a shortage of nurses in Sweden, especially specialist nurses. The magnitude of the problem is expected to increase in the near and distant future due to retiring nurses and an expected increase in the demand for health services due to an ageing population in Sweden. In this thesis it is examined whether the shortage of specialist nurses can be explained by the current economic incentives for general nurses to get specialized. It is done by performing econometric analysis on a data material covering all nurses employed by the county council located most south in Sweden, Region Skåne. It cannot be proved that economic incentives are negative and thus not too low. However, the regressions estimating specialist nurse wage premiums are likely to suffer from endogeneity and thus the estimated wage premiums are probably upward biased. Therefore it is concluded that the economic incentives might be negative even though it cannot be shown in this thesis. Nurses do react to changes in economic incentives which make it effective in reducing the shortage. Furthermore it is stated that additional factors are influential in a nurse’s decision to get specialized. (Less)
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author
Björk, Henrik LU
supervisor
organization
course
NEKP01 20141
year
type
H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
subject
keywords
specialist nurse, economic incentives, monopsony power, wage premium
language
English
id
4462816
date added to LUP
2014-06-26 15:01:11
date last changed
2014-06-26 15:01:11
@misc{4462816,
  abstract     = {{There is a shortage of nurses in Sweden, especially specialist nurses. The magnitude of the problem is expected to increase in the near and distant future due to retiring nurses and an expected increase in the demand for health services due to an ageing population in Sweden. In this thesis it is examined whether the shortage of specialist nurses can be explained by the current economic incentives for general nurses to get specialized. It is done by performing econometric analysis on a data material covering all nurses employed by the county council located most south in Sweden, Region Skåne. It cannot be proved that economic incentives are negative and thus not too low. However, the regressions estimating specialist nurse wage premiums are likely to suffer from endogeneity and thus the estimated wage premiums are probably upward biased. Therefore it is concluded that the economic incentives might be negative even though it cannot be shown in this thesis. Nurses do react to changes in economic incentives which make it effective in reducing the shortage. Furthermore it is stated that additional factors are influential in a nurse’s decision to get specialized.}},
  author       = {{Björk, Henrik}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Can Wages Explain the Shortage of Specialist Nurses in the Swedish Health Sector?}},
  year         = {{2014}},
}