Job preferences of medical and nursing students seeking employment in rural China: a discrete choice experiment

BMC Medical Education

Table 3 Mixed logit model results for medical and nursing students’ job preferences

Attributes	Parameter	Medical students		Nursing students
		Coefficients ^a	SE	Coefficients	SE
Salary ^b
Salary	Mean	0.000285***	0.00	0.000290***	0.00
Education opportunity ^c
Once every 2 years	Mean	0.035	0.043	0.061	0.039
Once every 2 years	SD	0.002	0.091	0.120	0.163
Once a year	Mean	0.161***	0.046	0.107**	0.042
Once a year	SD	0.139	0.115	0.060	0.110
Transportation ^d
Convenient	Mean	0.235***	0.037	0.359***	0.041
Convenient	SD	0.308***	0.055	0.475***	0.045
Job location ^e
City	Mean	0.218***	0.055	0.231***	0.049
City	SD	0.371***	0.089	0.111	0.190
Workload ^f
40 h per week	Mean	0.153***	0.046	0.227***	0.044
40 h per week	SD	0.332***	0.069	0.224***	0.085
60 h per week	Mean	−0.106**	0.043	−0.150***	0.038
60 h per week	SD	0.013	0.105	0.054	0.138
Essential equipment ^g
Adequate	Mean	0.271***	0.040	0.277***	0.033
Adequate	SD	0.475***	0.045	0.284***	0.050
Patient–doctor relationships ^h
Quarrel	Mean	−0.351***	0.049	−0.255***	0.048
Quarrel	SD	0.081	0.195	0.122	0.136
Physical conflict	Mean	−0.893***	0.064	−0.498***	0.056
Physical conflict	SD	0.714***	0.068	0.445***	0.071
Suit	Mean	−0.884***	0.071	−0.497***	0.054
Suit	SD	0.830***	0.079	0.346***	0.089
Bianzhi ⁱ
Have Bianzhi	Mean	0.411***	0.046	0.454***	0.039
Have Bianzhi	SD	0.635***	0.047	0.465***	0.044
Constant		0.118	0.034	−0.059	0.034
Number of respondents		388		399
Number of observations		15,520		15,960
Log likelihood		− 4464.6944		− 4583.6866
LR chi-square		275.86		124.41
Prob > chi-square		0.0000		0.0000

^***P < 0.01, ^**P < 0.05
SD Standard deviation, SE Standard error
^aThe coefficient represents the mean relative utility of each attribute conditional on other attributes in a choice set, while the standard deviation of the random coefficients reflects the degree of heterogeneity in respondent preferences for a given attribute
^bContinuous variable; the coefficient represents the magnitude of increase in utility by having one extra RMB
^cCompared with once every 5 years
^dCompared with inconvenient transportation
^eCompared with rural job location
^fCompared with 50 h per week
^gCompared with inadequate essential equipment
^hCompared with no quarrel, physical conflict and suit
ⁱCompared with no Bianzhi

ISSN: 1472-6920