HBI Deals+Insights / News

Bismarckian systems tend to pay nurses better than NHS systems

 

In this week’s infographic we look at data on average nursing salaries across several European countries, categorised by whether they have Bismarckian/statutory insurance systems or NHS systems.

Using OECD data on nurse remuneration across 13 European countries, specifically data on the ratio of hospital nurse pay to average pay across all occupations in each country, we find that countries which have Bismarckian systems tend to pay nurses better than countries with NHS systems.

For more details, please hover over the graph.

The only country out of the six which have Bismarckian systems where nurses are paid less than the average worker is France, where nurses on average receive salaries of 90% the average worker. Meanwhile Germany pays its nurses 10% more than the average worker, the Netherlands 20% more, Czechia 40% more, Luxembourg 50% more and Belgium 60% more.

In the NHS countries Spain is a bit of an outlier, paying nurses 50% more than the average worker. But the UK, Italy, Portugal and Norway all pay their nurses roughly the average wage, whilst Finland pays its nurses as badly as France.

The obvious explanation for the difference in pay between the countries is that countries where the majority of nurses are employed by the state tend to pay their nurses less since the public sector, as the monopsony buyer of labour, is able to keep wages down – whilst nurse wages in countries where a significant share are employed by the private sector are set more competitively. This could also explain why Spain is an outlier amongst the NHS systems, as it has a comparatively large private hospital sector for an NHS country.

We would welcome your thoughts on this story. Email your views to Martin De Benito Gellner or call 0207 183 3779.