The Structure of Supervision and Pay in Hospitals

Abstract

Using BLS data on 300 hospitals in 1985, the authors examine pay in four occupations, with a particular focus on the effect of supervision on the pay of nonsupervisory employees. There was a strong hospital-specific effect on wages that cut across occupations; thus, if a hospital paid relatively high wages to one occupation, it was likely to pay high wages to workers in other occupations as well. The inter-occupational pattern of the ratio of supervisors to staff, on the other hand, was much less uniform among hospitals. The wages of staff nurses tended to fall with the extent of supervision, suggesting that workers do not receive a compensating wage premium in return for closer supervision.