Hinton, Ivora, Jessica Howell, Elizabeth Merwin, Steven N. Stern, Sarah Turner, Ishan Williams, and Melvin Wilson. 2010. “The Educational Pipeline for Health Care Professionals: Understanding the Source of Racial Differences.” Journal of Human Resources 45(1): 116–156.
The underrepresentation of blacks in the healthcare professions may have direct implications for the health outcomes of minority patients, underscoring the importance of understanding movement through the educational pipeline into professional healthcare careers by race. We jointly model individuals’ postsecondary decisions including enrollment, college type, degree completion, and choosing a healthcare occupation requiring an advanced degree. We estimate the parameters of the model with maximum likelihood using data from the NLS-72. Our results emphasize the importance of pre-collegiate factors and of jointly examining the full chain of educational decisions in understanding the sources of racial disparities in professional healthcare occupations.
Ivora Hinton is the coordinator, data analyses and interpretation, at the University of Virginia’s School of Nursing. Jessica Howell is an assistant professor of economics at California State University, Sacramento. Elizabeth Merwin is associate dean at the University of Virginia’s School of Nursing. Steven N. Stern is a professor of economics at the University of Virginia. Sarah Turner is a professor of economics at the University of Virginia. Ishan Williams is an assistant professor at the University of Virginia’s School of Nursing. Melvin Wilson is a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia. The authors thank Michelle Bucci and Elizabeth Katz for their excellent research assistance. The data used in this article are available from the authors from August 2010 to July 2013.