European Policy Analysis
according to the OECD figures , followed by Northern Greece with 4.99 practicing physicians per 1,000 inhabitants ( OECD 2009 ). Nowadays , many hospitals in other regions of Greece are facing shortages in health personnel , according to the Greek Chamber of Health Personnel in the Public Health System ( POEDIN 2016 ).
After 2009 , the health sector in Greece , as with the entire Greek public sector , has been at the center of reform policies undertaken by the Greek government following the directives of the so-called Troika , formed by the International Monetary Fund ( IMF ), the European Union ( EU ), and the European Central Bank ( ECB ). Therefore , the phenomenon of physician migration from Greece could be plausibly associated with these reform policies and accompanying aspects of the financial crisis , such as unemployment and recession .
It is obvious that the political factor plays a key role in this case , since the government is responsible for shaping the health policy and directing the national health sector . Consequently , it will also be interesting in the context of the present article to investigate how the structures and current developments in the public health sectors of both countries influence this case of migration — as well as the subjective reasons for emigration expressed by the Greek physicians in Germany interviewed — in order to assess the role of the political framework in each country . Kirsten Hoesch has proved that the structural characteristics of a country ’ s health sectors play a vital role in a migration case , especially in the case of the German health sector ( Hoesch 2009 ; 2012 ). This second basic research question and Hoesch ’ s argument emphasize the notion of focusing on both health sectors and on the key actors responsible for the health policy and also for the regulation of the corresponding labor markets .
Hypotheses and Theoretical Framework . At the micro-level , the present article will try to lay out the subjective reasons for the migration of Greek physicians from Greece to Germany , as they have been expressed during interviews with six Greek physicians undergoing their medical specialization training in the German health sector . Taking into consideration the better economic situation of the German health sector ( which translates into better salaries for a physician ), as well as the many vacancies resulting from shortages of physicians in the German health sector , it is assumed that these factors , which intend economic maximization according to neoclassical economic theories , would be the main reasons for the migration . According to representatives of neoclassical economics , migration occurs due to estimation of personal income maximization , and therefore the migrant concentrates on the income differentiation between countries , on personal qualifications , on the employment rates in the destination country ( Todaro 1969 ), but also on the employee ’ s age and on the relevant costs of migration according to Sjaastad ( 1962 ). Later , Pissarides and Wadsworth integrated the factor of employment rates in the home country in this model ( Pissarides and Wadsworth 1989 ).
Generally , neoclassical economic approaches focus on the classic “ push and pull ” argument , concerning the differences in wage levels between the health sectors of the countries in the case of physicians , and on the role of the national labor markets as primary mechanisms of migration flows . Therefore , an analytic focus on the national
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