Inter-Provincial Migration Intentions of Family Physicians in Canada: The Roles of Income and Community Characteristics

The inter-provincial migration patterns of family physicians in Canada show that some provinces like Newfoundland and Saskatchewan experience persistent net out-migration, while others, including Ontario and British Columbia, are destinations more often than origins of migrants. Governments in provi...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Mou, Haizhen, Olfert, M. Rose
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: Longwoods Publishing 2015
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Online Access:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4729283/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26742116
Description
Summary:The inter-provincial migration patterns of family physicians in Canada show that some provinces like Newfoundland and Saskatchewan experience persistent net out-migration, while others, including Ontario and British Columbia, are destinations more often than origins of migrants. Governments in provinces exhibiting net out-migration have responded with a number of incentive and recruitment programs. In this study, we investigate the determinants of the stated interprovincial migration intentions of 3,995 rural and urban family physicians in the 2010 wave of the National Physician Survey. We consider a range of physician characteristics, community attributes and working conditions. We find that in the intention to move, higher compensation has a modest effect, while the community characteristics have a consistently important influence. Our results suggest that policy and program designers should acknowledge the critical role of community-level living and working conditions in their family physician recruitment and retention efforts.