Work Preferences in Rural Health Job Posting Among Medical Interns in the Philippines

Abstract

Timely empirical evidence is important in the success of health systems, and in health human resources in the Philippines, such evidence is necessary for informed policy making to address imbalances in the health workforce. This study provides qualitative and quantitative information on the preferences of newly graduated medical doctors regarding rural job postings. Key informant interviews and focus group discussions identified the roles of wages, equipment status, and presence of supervision as important factors in considering a rural job post. Discrete choice experiment results verified the relative value of supervision, location of family from the work area, and availability of career opportunities in the respondents' preferences to work in rural areas: respondents are willing to sacrifice significant salary for better levels of supervision, family location, and career opportunities, and uptake rates for job postings with these incentives also tend to significantly increase recruitment in rural job posts. Combinations of wage and high-impact non-wage incentives tend to produce the highest increases in uptake rates. Age, sex, and economic status do not appear to factor in the respondents' preferences, but those with rural backgrounds tend to value supervision and career opportunities more than their urban counterparts. Young graduates who came from rural backgrounds also tend to consider rural practice soon after graduation, suggesting rural job posting policies may focus on this specific cohort of medical graduates.