South SFV Today

Careers in the health care sector continue to show strong growth, according to a study led by Stanford economist Neale Mahoney. The research highlights significant trends in the industry, including wage increases and shifts in workforce demographics.

The study reveals that earnings for U.S. health care workers have risen almost twice as fast as those in other industries over more than four decades. In 2009, the health care sector surpassed retail as the largest source of jobs in the country.

Mahoney's research also indicates that despite efforts to pivot from manufacturing to health care for local employment boosts, this transition has not met expectations. Health care jobs have only slightly compensated for manufacturing job losses and have not significantly benefited non-white workers or those without college degrees.

The study further notes disparities in wage increases within the health care field. Middle-class and upper-middle-class employees have seen more substantial compensation growth compared to the overall U.S. labor force. For example, nurses' wages have increased by approximately 82%, while overall U.S. worker wages rose nearly 37%.

Another key finding is that "midlevel" positions such as physician assistants and nurse practitioners now provide over half of primary care services in the U.S., with their numbers having more than doubled since 2010.

Demographic changes are also highlighted, with women holding about three-quarters of health care jobs—a figure unchanged since 1980—while there are now three times as many female physicians compared to four decades ago. Additionally, there has been an increase in foreign-born physicians and aides at a faster rate than foreign-born workers generally.

Mahoney's collaborators on this study include Joshua Gottlieb from the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy; Kevin Rinz from the Washington Center for Equitable Growth; and Victoria Udalova from the U.S. Census Bureau. They emphasize that these findings carry important policy implications.

The authors describe health care as a “modern middle-class ‘jobs engine’” but note that its benefits have not fully reached areas impacted by manufacturing declines due to inadequate resources or ineffective policy implementations.

“Now that we have a clearer reading on what’s happening in the health care job market,” Mahoney states, “understanding what’s behind the trends will be crucial as the industry continues to expand and technology changes.”

This story was originally published by the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.