Nurses' labor supply: participation, hours of work, and discontinuities in the supply function

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a formal labor supply model for nurses in Great Britain. It corrects for misspecification and sample selection bias which affected earlier research on women's labor supply generally in the United Kingdom and tests for the existence of discontinuities in the supply curve of nurses. Estimates of labor market participation elasticities with respect to the wage rate, non-labor income, and to the costs incurred through work are reported for nurses, qualified and unqualified. Participation is found to be highly responsive to wage changes and some discontinuity is found in the supply function.