IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ecdequ/v24y2010i1p33-44.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Chains and Ladders: Exploring the Opportunities for Workforce Development and Poverty Reduction in the Hospital Sector

Author

Listed:
  • Marla Nelson

    (University of New Orleans, New Orleans, LA, USA, mnelson@uno.edu)

  • Laura Wolf-Powers

    (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA)

Abstract

In this article, the authors investigate the potential of hospitals to offer low- and semiskilled workers employment and advancement options.This study uses the job chains approach to measuring economic development impacts devised by Persky, Felsenstein, and Carlson to compare hospitals with three other industries highly concentrated in central cities and examines the practical challenges facing workforce development professionals. The findings suggest that growth in hospital employment has the potential to outstrip the impact of growth in accommodations, legal services, and securities and commodities on the well-being of low-income workers and should prompt economic development practitioners to take the sector more seriously as a locus for attention and investment. To maximize welfare gain and distributional equity, economic development policy makers must accompany investments in health care—based economic development both with strategies to promote skills attainment and credentialing among low-paid health care workers and with formal strategies to facilitate upward movement.

Suggested Citation

  • Marla Nelson & Laura Wolf-Powers, 2010. "Chains and Ladders: Exploring the Opportunities for Workforce Development and Poverty Reduction in the Hospital Sector," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 24(1), pages 33-44, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:ecdequ:v:24:y:2010:i:1:p:33-44
    DOI: 10.1177/0891242409347721
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0891242409347721
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0891242409347721?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marla Nelson, 2009. "Are Hospitals an Export Industry?," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 23(3), pages 242-253, August.
    2. Timothy J. Bartik & George Erickcek, 2007. "Higher Education, the Health Care Industry, and Metropolitan Regional Economic Development: What Can “Eds & Meds” Do for the Economic Fortunes of a Metro Area’s Residents?," Upjohn Working Papers 08-140, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    3. Daniel Felsenstein & Joseph Persky, 1999. "When is a Cost Really a Benefit? Local Welfare Effects and Employment Creation in the Evaluation of Economic Development Programs," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 13(1), pages 46-54, February.
    4. Joseph Persky & Daniel Felsenstein & Virginia Carlson, 2004. "Does "Trickle Down" Work? Economic Development and Job Chains in Local Labor Markets," Books from Upjohn Press, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, number dtdw.
    5. Timothy J. Bartik, 1997. "Short-Term Employment Persistence for Welfare Recipients: The "Effects" of Wages, Industry, Occupation and Firm," Upjohn Working Papers 97-46, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ribas, Vanesa & Dill, Janette S. & Cohen, Philip N., 2012. "Mobility for care workers: Job changes and wages for nurse aides," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(12), pages 2183-2190.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Joseph Persky & Daniel Felsenstein, 2008. "Multipliers, Markups, and Mobility Rents: In Defense of ‘Chain Models’ in Urban and Regional Analysis," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 40(12), pages 2933-2947, December.
    2. Marla Nelson, 2009. "Are Hospitals an Export Industry?," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 23(3), pages 242-253, August.
    3. David Card & Charles Michalopoulos & Philip K. Robins, 2001. "The Limits to Wage Growth: Measuring the Growth Rate of Wages For Recent Welfare Leavers," NBER Working Papers 8444, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Peter R. Mueser & Kenneth R. Troske & David R. Stevens, 2007. "The Impact of Welfare Reform on Leaver Characteristics, Employment and Recidivism: An Analysis of Maryland and Missouri," Working Papers 0720, Department of Economics, University of Missouri.
    5. Julia Lane & David Stevens, 2001. "Welfare‐to‐Work Outcomes: The Role of the Employer," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 67(4), pages 1010-1021, April.
    6. Stephan J Goetz & Mark D Partridge & Dan S Rickman & Shibalee Majumdar, 2011. "Sharing the Gains of Local Economic Growth: Race-to-the-Top versus Race-to-the-Bottom Economic Development," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 29(3), pages 428-456, June.
    7. Lambert, Thomas & Mattson, Gary & Dorriere, Kyle, 2016. "Industry Clustering and Unemployment in US Regions: An Exploratory Note," MPRA Paper 69584, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Kitty Stewart, 2007. "Employment trajectories for mothers in low-skilled work: Evidence from the British Lone Parent Cohort," CASE Papers case122, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    9. Peter Schochet & Anu Rangarajan, 2004. "Characteristics of Low-Wage Workers and Their Labor Market Experiences: Evidence from the Mid- to Late 1990s," Mathematica Policy Research Reports 579c8356364142fcafb95b72b, Mathematica Policy Research.
    10. Ashish Goel & L.S. Ganesh & Arshinder Kaur, 2020. "Benefits Formulation in Construction Projects: An Exploratory Study through a Social Sustainability Perspective," IIM Kozhikode Society & Management Review, , vol. 9(2), pages 162-176, July.
    11. Julia Lane & David Stevens, 2000. "Welfare-to-Work Policy: Employer Hiring and Retention of Former Welfare Recipients," JCPR Working Papers 19, Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research.
    12. Bashir, Saima & Herath, Janaranjana & Gebremedhin, Tesfa G., 2012. "An Empirical Analysis of Higher Education and Economic Growth in West Virginia," 2012 Annual Meeting, August 12-14, 2012, Seattle, Washington 124829, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    13. Thomas E. Lambert & Gary A. Mattson & Kyle Dorriere, 2017. "The impact of growth and innovation clusters on unemployment in US metro regions," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(1), pages 25-37, March.
    14. Barkley, David L. & Henry, Mark S. & Warner, Mellie L., 2002. "Estimating the Community-Level Impacts of Attracting New Businesses: The Implications of Local Labor Market Adjustments," UCED Research Reports 113334, Clemson University, University Center for Economic Development.
    15. Barkley, David L. & DiFurio, Ferdinand & Leatherman, John C., 2004. "The Role of A Public Venture Capital Program in State Economic Development: The Case of Kansas Venture Capital, Inc," Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, Mid-Continent Regional Science Association, vol. 34(4), pages 1-24.
    16. repec:cep:sticas:/122 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Lindgren, Petter Y. & Presterud, Ane Ofstad, 2021. "Expanding the Norwegian Armed Forces in the Time of Corona: Benefit-Cost Analysis in the Context of High Unemployment Rate," MPRA Paper 106405, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Laura Wolf-Powers, 2012. "Human-capital-centred Regionalism in Economic Development: A Case of Analytics Outpacing Institutions?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 49(15), pages 3427-3446, November.
    19. Mark D. Partridge & Dan S. Rickman, 2008. "Does a Rising Tide Lift All Metropolitan Boats? Assessing Poverty Dynamics by Metropolitan Size and County Type," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(2), pages 283-312, June.
    20. Peter R. Mueser & Kenneth Troske & William J. Carrington, 2002. "The Impact of Welfare Reform on Leaver Characteristics, Employment and Recidivism," Working Papers 0205, Department of Economics, University of Missouri, revised 26 Aug 2002.
    21. Felsenstein, Daniel & Fleischer, Aliza, 1999. "Capital Assistance and Small Firm Growth: Implications for Regional Economic Welfare," ERSA conference papers ersa99pa395, European Regional Science Association.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:ecdequ:v:24:y:2010:i:1:p:33-44. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.