Do Wage Expectations Influence the Decision to Enroll in Nursing College?

Jürg Schweri and Joop Hartog ()
Additional contact information
Joop Hartog: University of Amsterdam

No 9120, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: As Switzerland experiences a severe shortage of nurses, this paper investigates the impact of students' ex ante wage expectations on their choice to pursue a nursing college education. This analysis contributes to a small yet rapidly developing body of literature that uses subjective expectation data to predict educational choices. We surveyed a full cohort of healthcare trainees in their third year of training. The main result is that those trainees (in upper-secondary education) who expected a greater return from nursing college (tertiary education) were more likely to enroll in nursing college later on. This suggests that policies that increase returns from studying nursing can attract students to nursing. In addition, the results confirm that subjective wage expectation data are useful in modeling individual choice.

Keywords: subjective expectations; nursing; human capital; healthcare; fractional regression; college choice; training; wage (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D84 I11 I21 J24 J31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36 pages
Date: 2015-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-hea, nep-hrm and nep-lma
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published - published as 'Do wage expectations predict college enrollment? Evidence from healthcare' in: Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2017, 141, 135 - 150

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Related works:
Journal Article: Do wage expectations predict college enrollment? Evidence from healthcare (2017)
Working Paper: Do wage expectations influence the decision to enroll in nursing college? (2014)
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