I think there’s strong evidence that there is in fact a far weaker “bench” of substitute capital in the Phillipines. Pre nurse-glut, 58% of nurses passed the registration exam, whereas post nurse-glut that dropped to 38%.
I agree that top talent loss is likely far less of a big deal in the Phillipines but for very different reasons—mainly because only 1 in 8 (or similar) new staff left, which should mean enough strong staff remain, even with the clear drop in average nurse quality.
Phillipines and Nigerian CBAs are likely be wildly different, even just based off the one datapoint that Nigeria has lost tens of thousands of net nurses through emigration while Phillipines gained.
I think there’s strong evidence that there is in fact a far weaker “bench” of substitute capital in the Phillipines. Pre nurse-glut, 58% of nurses passed the registration exam, whereas post nurse-glut that dropped to 38%.
I agree that top talent loss is likely far less of a big deal in the Phillipines but for very different reasons—mainly because only 1 in 8 (or similar) new staff left, which should mean enough strong staff remain, even with the clear drop in average nurse quality.
Not sure if we disagree here. Of course I’d expect the average nurse quality to go down as the workforce increases by 9x. Rather, the claim about weaker substitutes in Nigeria was about explaining whyPhilippines nursing supply might be more price elastic than Nigerian supply. Specifically, since literacy, numeracy and high school graduation rates are likely significantly higher in Philippines than Nigeria, there’s a larger share of the population that could plausibly respond to the migration demand shock by acquiring the relevant training.[1]
Phillipines and Nigerian CBAs are likely be wildly different, even just based off the one datapoint that Nigeria has lost tens of thousands of net nurses through emigration while Phillipines gained.
Agreed if we conducted the CBA today. However, as stated in the original comment, we want to be careful about lags here. Even in the Philippines, the migration increase started in 2000 when the US policy changed (Figure 3) and peaked in ~2006. While the enrollment rate in nursing programs did start increasing in 2000 itself (Figure 4, Panel A), the increase in the nurse graduation rate (i.e., the trained workforce) only started in 2004 (Figure 4, Panel B), and only hit it’s peak in 2010, 10 years after the migration began. If we were looking at the change in Philippines’ nurse workforce from 2000-2004, I think we might’ve concluded that they’d lost nurses and that the migration was a net-loss for them. Now, as we’ve discussed, there are reasons to believe that Nigerian nursing supply may not be as elastic as Philippines nursing supply, but I just wanted to emphasize that the current net-loss of nurses in Nigeria doesn’t yet give us strong evidence that the CBAs will be wildly different.
Yep agree with all of that. Nigeria has been losing quite a large number of nurses for 5 years now, but maybe the compensation will happen like in the Philippines like you say
Shall we check in here again in 5 years and see what happens ;).
I think there’s strong evidence that there is in fact a far weaker “bench” of substitute capital in the Phillipines. Pre nurse-glut, 58% of nurses passed the registration exam, whereas post nurse-glut that dropped to 38%.
I agree that top talent loss is likely far less of a big deal in the Phillipines but for very different reasons—mainly because only 1 in 8 (or similar) new staff left, which should mean enough strong staff remain, even with the clear drop in average nurse quality.
Phillipines and Nigerian CBAs are likely be wildly different, even just based off the one datapoint that Nigeria has lost tens of thousands of net nurses through emigration while Phillipines gained.
Not sure if we disagree here. Of course I’d expect the average nurse quality to go down as the workforce increases by 9x. Rather, the claim about weaker substitutes in Nigeria was about explaining why Philippines nursing supply might be more price elastic than Nigerian supply. Specifically, since literacy, numeracy and high school graduation rates are likely significantly higher in Philippines than Nigeria, there’s a larger share of the population that could plausibly respond to the migration demand shock by acquiring the relevant training.[1]
Agreed if we conducted the CBA today. However, as stated in the original comment, we want to be careful about lags here. Even in the Philippines, the migration increase started in 2000 when the US policy changed (Figure 3) and peaked in ~2006. While the enrollment rate in nursing programs did start increasing in 2000 itself (Figure 4, Panel A), the increase in the nurse graduation rate (i.e., the trained workforce) only started in 2004 (Figure 4, Panel B), and only hit it’s peak in 2010, 10 years after the migration began. If we were looking at the change in Philippines’ nurse workforce from 2000-2004, I think we might’ve concluded that they’d lost nurses and that the migration was a net-loss for them. Now, as we’ve discussed, there are reasons to believe that Nigerian nursing supply may not be as elastic as Philippines nursing supply, but I just wanted to emphasize that the current net-loss of nurses in Nigeria doesn’t yet give us strong evidence that the CBAs will be wildly different.
Implicit here is that basic numeracy, literacy and high school graduation are pre-requisites for acquiring nurse training.
Yep agree with all of that. Nigeria has been losing quite a large number of nurses for 5 years now, but maybe the compensation will happen like in the Philippines like you say
Shall we check in here again in 5 years and see what happens ;).