The Effectiveness of Interventions to Increase Employment in Education and Healthcare: A Systematic Literature Review

Lara Fleck, Melline Somers, Tom Stolp*, Wim Groot, Frits van Merode, Ralph de Vries

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal(Systematic) Review article peer-review

Abstract

Both the healthcare and education sector sufer from considerable staf shortages.
In the healthcare sector, shortages are particularly prominent for nurses, while the education sector experiences signifcant teacher shortages. In this systematic literature review, we examine the effectiveness of interventions and policies to reduce staff shortages in healthcare and education in high-income countries. We focus our analysis on studies that apply research designs that allow for causal inference to inform policymakers about the effectiveness of interventions. In total, we include 85 studies that meet our inclusion criteria. Out of these studies, 71 studies focus on teachers and 14 on nurses, and 72 of the retrieved studies were conducted in the US.
The majority of studies examine the impact of financial incentives and a large share of these studies report positive effects on teacher employment. Moreover, different types of interventions that invest in workers’ human capital show predominantly
positive effects on employment. Interventions that equip nurses with skills to better cope with the stressors of their profession seem to be particularly effective. The same holds for policies that increase the scope of practice for nurses. Finally, effective school leaders are better capable of retaining (high-quality) teachers.
Original languageEnglish
Number of pages45
JournalDe Economist
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 16 Dec 2024

JEL classifications

  • i10 - Health: General
  • i20 - Education and Research Institutions: General
  • j22 - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

Keywords

  • Labor shortage
  • Teachers
  • Nurses

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