Factors affecting the labor supply for registered nurses in the U.S.
Date
2012
Authors
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Many countries, including the US have been facing a severe shortage of registered nurses (RNs) for a long time. Labor supply models for RNs have been estimated by marital status (for women) and gender for the 2004 and 2008 data from the National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses. This study is built on earlier work by Link and Chiha, which estimated labor supply models for 1992, 1996 and 2000 data from the same survey. The empirical literature on RN labor supply is brought together for the last forty years, because the methodology and variables used in the current analysis are similar to those used by Chiha and Link. Comparisons are made with other studies in the literature of the labor supply of females in the general population and nurses. The RNs (predicted) own wage had slight, but statistically insignificant effects on both participation in the labor force and hours per year, given participation. Consistency in results for the key variables over the different datasets and earlier work by Chiha and Link, has been found. These results are relevant to policy makers, who are concerned with the current nursing shortage.