| Sumario: | Drawing on the longitudinal data files generated by the March Current Population Survey from 1983 to 1994, the writer explores the exit decision of registered nurses (RNs). Through analyzing the wages of workers outside of nursing, he formulates a measure of the reservation wage and relates it to the decision to leave nursing either for an alternative job or to exit employment. His findings indicate that nurses respond to outside wage opportunities. He reports that a one standard deviation drop in the difference between the actual and predicted log wage yields an 8-percent rise in the exit of nurses. In addition, he asserts that secretaries have a much greater sensitivity to outside wages due to the lower degree of occupation-specific training demanded for secretarial jobs. He concludes that RNs employed in hospitals, covered by a union contract, and employed in the public sector are relatively attached to the nursing profession.
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