Sharing the Burden: The Impacts of Pharmacy Sector Reforms on the Labor Market for Pharmacists in Portugal

ABSTRACT

During the 2010 crisis, the Portuguese government enacted several reforms to its prescription drug reimbursement system. As a result, value added per pharmacist in pharmacies fell by a third. We use longitudinal records from Quadros de Pessoal (QP), merged with collective bargaining data and firm financial records, to study the impacts of the reforms. We estimate that between 2009 and 2022, average wages of pharmacists fell by a third, mostly due to lower wages for new cohorts. We then consider how wages of pharmacists diverged relative to wages of other health care professionals and the decisions of college applicants to enter the profession.