Coming soon · Book Profile
Nurses on the Move
An in-depth investigation into the global migration of nurses, revealing how systemic failures in health systems worldwide create a vast, often exploitative, international market for nursing skills that threatens the sustainability of healthcare for both sending and receiving nations.
A profile of this book is on the way.
What it’s about
In an era of globalization, millions of nurses are on the move, creating a complex and volatile global healthcare economy. Mireille Kingma's "Nurses on the Move" takes you behind the staggering statistics to reveal the human face of this mass migration. The book explores the powerful 'push' factors—like poor pay, dangerous working conditions, and lack of opportunity—that drive nurses from their home countries, and the 'pull' factors, such as higher salaries and aggressive recruitment campaigns, that lure them to industrialized nations. It exposes the multi-billion dollar industry of recruitment agencies, educational institutions, and legal firms that profit from this movement, often at the expense of the nurses themselves. Delving into the heated 'brain drain' versus 'brain gain' debate, Kingma challenges the notion that migration is a sustainable solution to nursing shortages, arguing instead that it is a symptom of a deeper, systemic crisis. This book is an essential read for anyone seeking to understand the profound ethical, social, and economic implications of a globalized health workforce and the urgent need for policies that prioritize nurse retention and patient safety worldwide.
The through-line
- Who it’s for
- The reader is a health policy maker, hospital administrator, or nursing leader grappling with a persistent nursing shortage and seeking a sustainable, ethical way to ensure safe patient care.
- The problem
- There is a critical, global shortage of nurses, leading to understaffed facilities, compromised patient safety, and an increasingly desperate and competitive international scramble for talent. They feel overwhelmed and trapped in a reactive cycle, constantly trying to plug staffing gaps with short-term fixes, while feeling ethically conflicted about poaching nurses from countries that may need them more.
- The plan
- Understand the 'push' and 'pull' factors driving global nurse migration.
- Analyze the commercial and policy infrastructure that facilitates this movement.
- Evaluate the true costs and benefits of migration through the lens of 'brain drain, gain, and circulation'.
- Shift focus from temporary recruitment to long-term retention strategies.
- Advocate for and implement ethical regulations for the international recruitment process.
- The payoff
- A stable, motivated, and well-supported nursing workforce. · Improved patient safety and quality of care. · A sustainable and ethical health system that is a model for others.
See our guide
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Additional reading
- The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology · Dorothy E. Smith
The author explicitly identifies Smith's work as the primary methodological and theoretical foundation for his study, particularly its focus on the disjuncture between lived experience and administrative texts.
- Living and Dying at Murray Manor · Jaber F. Gubrium
Cited by the author as one of the few existing ethnographic studies of nursing home life that provided a foundation for his own work.
- Ordered to Care: The Dilemma of American Nursing, 1850-1945 · Susan M. Reverby
This book provides historical context for the professional roles and status conflicts in nursing, which helps explain the position of the nursing assistants in the story.
- Manufacturing Consent: Changes in the Labor Process under Monopoly Capitalism · Michael Burawoy
Cited as an influential participant-observation study that, like 'Making Gray Gold,' connects the daily experiences of workers on the shop floor to the broader political economy of capitalism.
- Good Jobs America: Making Work Better for Everyone · Paul Osterman and Beth Shulman
Cited by the author in the preface, this book likely provides the broader context for his argument that improving low-wage work requires industry-specific analysis and strategies.
- Caring in America: Home Health Workers in the Shadow of the Welfare State · Eileen Boris and Jennifer Klein
The author cites this work extensively to provide the historical context for why the home care aide job was created as a form of 'workfare' and has been stigmatized and excluded from labor protections.
- Care and Equality: Inventing a New Family Politics · Mona Harrington
The book quotes Harrington in the first chapter to establish the contemporary "care crisis" and the failure to replace the care once provided by stay-at-home women, setting the stage for the author's own analysis.
- Ancient Law · Henry Maine
The author references Maine's classic argument about the societal shift from status to contract to frame her own argument that status obligations (based on gender and race) have persisted in both family and market relations concerning care.
- The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work · Arlie Russell Hochschild
Cited to describe the 'time bind' and 'stretch out' experienced by middle-class families, illustrating that the care crisis is no longer confined to the poor and has become a widespread societal problem.
- The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling · Arlie Russell Hochschild
This book is foundational to the concept of 'emotional labor,' a key analytical tool used in many chapters to understand the psychological and relational demands of care work.