European Policy Analysis
Firstly , the article takes stock , on the one hand , of the annual statistical data of the German medical association regarding the health sector workforce , but also the statistical data provided by the Greek statistical authority concerning the number of physicians in the Greek health sector , on the other . These data will provide information about the migration of Greek physicians to the German health sector in numbers , and they will contribute to discovering the needs for assessing the looming shortages or oversupply in physicians within the health sectors of both countries .
Secondly , concerning the section on the health sectors , the article takes the existing literature into consideration , which focuses on the analysis of health sectors in Greece and in Germany . The article will focus more on the literature that explains the role of the key actors in the German health sector by the migration of health workers ( Hoesch 2009 ; 2012 ), and the structures and main reforms in the Greek health sector in the context of the loan agreements with Troika and the economic adjustment program ( Economou et al . 2014 ).
Thirdly , the data about the migration motives of Greek physicians who migrated for specialization training in the German health sectors originate from an analysis of semi-structured interviews . The semistructured interviews with three female and three male Greek physicians took place in Germany between June 2014 and August 2015 . All the interviewees are persons who came to Germany after 2010 and were between 28 and 35 years old at the time of the interviews . These data will explain the subjective factors crucial in the decision to leave Greece in the first place ( push factor ), as well as those subjective factors that were decisive for choosing the German health sector as the favored working environment for undergoing medical specialization training ( pull factors ). The interview findings will be presented thematically and according to these two categories with the help of quotations from the interviewees . The presentation of the findings will also follow this sequence , beginning with the statistical data on the workforce of physicians in both countries , and continuing with the analysis of both health sectors , in regard to their organization and the key actors responsible for planning the workforce of the health sectors . Last but not least , the subjective motivations for the migration from Greece to Germany according to the interviews will be presented in the last part of the findings in order to draw the final conclusions of this article .
Some Empirical Findings About the Physicians ’ Manpower in Both Health Systems
The remarkably high density of physicians in Greece is being translated into 68,807 physicians in total numbers during 2014 . Those practicing in Attica represent 48.5 %, indicating that this high density and the alleged oversupply of physicians does not affect the entire country , but primarily the metropolitan region of Athens . Table 1 presents the growth in numbers of physicians in the Greek health sector from 2002 to 2014 . It is remarkable that their percentage development between 2002 and 2010 was 37.6 %. The total number of
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Taking into account the protection of the personal data of interviewees , it was deemed necessary to use code names to assure the participants ’ anonymity .
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