What Fundamentals Drive the Immigration of Medical Doctors?

In a globalized world, the competition to attract high-skilled people from all over the world has become intense. In this context, medical doctors are one of the most targeted occupations because the need for healthcare is continuously growing. This chapter assesses the determinants of international immigration of medical doctors by focusing on the major OECD receiving countries yearly from 1991 to 2004. We use a traditional push–pull model to analyse the attractiveness of the healthcare market of receiving countries by disentangling the demand and the supply side. Our results conclude that the inflows of foreign-trained doctors is higher in OECD countries with low density of doctors (supply) and with high social expenditures in health (demand). These results suggest that the mobility of medical doctors responds to the strategy of OECD countries to fill the gap between their supply of health services and their population’s healthcare needs.