The Long-term Impact of Work-hour Regulations on Physician Labor Supply

Abstract

This chapter estimates the impact of a transitory reduction in hours during physicians' early career on their long-term labor supply, using the work-hour regulations on medical residents as the source of exogenous variation. The results show that exposure to the regulations significantly decreases practicing physicians' labor supply by about 4 hours per week on average, with female physicians being more responsive to a given reduction in early career hours. Distributional results using a changes-in-changes model confirm that the regulations primarily affect the upper end of the work-hour distribution. To reveal potential mechanisms of these effects, this study finds that the reform increases the probabilities of marriage and having a child, as well as the total number of children, for female physicians. In contrast, it does not have a significant impact on marriage and fertility outcomes for male physicians. These findings provide a better understanding of physicians' hours of work in response to the reform over time and the role of gender with respect to labor supply behavior and family formation decisions.

Citation

Liu, J. (2020), "The Long-term Impact of Work-hour Regulations on Physician Labor Supply", Polachek, S.W. and Tatsiramos, K. (Ed.) Change at Home, in the Labor Market, and On the Job (Research in Labor Economics, Vol. 48), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 27-60. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0147-912120200000048002