title: Employment choices and earnings of social workers: comparing private practice and salaried employment.
abstract: Direct recognition statutes, such as freedom of choice and vendorship laws, have the potential to increase the number of independent providers of psychotherapy, and thus to increase competition in the market for psychotherapy. These laws increase the economic return to private practice by requiring that third-party payers directly reimburse psychologists and social workers. There has been, however, little empirical investigation of the responsiveness of psychotherapists' employment choices to changes in the economic return to private practice. In this study, a structural model of social workers' earnings and employment choices between private practice and salaried employment is estimated. After correcting for the potential self selection bias, the results suggest that increasing the relative return to private practice does not increase the probability that a social worker will enter private practice.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Haas-Wilson
mesh_terms: D004465:Economic Competition; D004651:Employment; D011331:Private Practice / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration*; D012456:Salaries and Fringe Benefits; D012949:Social Work, Psychiatric / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration*; D014481:United States