On the influence of job characteristics on the attractiveness of nursing jobs in Germany

We find that, first, attractiveness of care jobs is most strongly affected by rather “soft”characteristics such as atmosphere within the team and time for patients. “Hard” factors play a considerably smaller role. Second, one hard factor, contract duration, is estimated to be among the most important job factors, however. This is a remarkable finding given that nursing occupations suffer from severe skill shortages. Third, though wage has a statistically significant influence on attractiveness, enormous wage raises would be needed in order to yield higher attractiveness gains than the top-rated soft factors, or to compensate for less pleasant job characteristics with respect to those factors. Last, even after controlling for other job characteristics, hospital nursing is still rated as more attractive than geriatric nursing.

Martin Kroczek and Jochen Späth: The Attractiveness of Jobs in the German Care Sector – Results of a Factorial Survey
IAW Discussions Papers No. 134, December 2020