The Australian nursing and midwifery academic workforce: A cross-sectional study

Aim: To explore the demographics, employment characteristics, job satisfaction and career intentions of the Australian nursing and midwifery academic workforce.

Background: The academic workforce is crucial in preparing the next generation of nurses and midwives. Thus, understanding current satisfaction, challenges, opportunities and intentions is important for recruitment and succession planning.

Design: Cross-sectional online Australian academic nursing and midwifery survey.

Method: Respondents were invited to complete an online survey via social media platforms, advertisements on professional websites and circulation via professional associations. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data.

Results: Of the 250 respondents, most were Registered Nurses (n=212), female (n=222), held tenured teaching and research positions (n=126) and were over the age of 50 (n=130). Almost half of respondents held a PhD (n=98), with 55 (43.7 %) of those without a Doctoral qualification indicating no intention in undertaking doctoral studies. Over 85 % (n=213) of respondents indicated working regular unpaid hours. Female respondents had a significantly higher mean annual teaching allocation compared with males who had higher research workload allocations (p=0.033). Job satisfaction and intention to leave academia were linked with workload and perceived value. Job satisfaction was significantly higher among teaching-only and research-only academics (p=0.005).

Conclusion: The sustainability of the Australian nursing and midwifery workforce is at risk due to an ageing workforce and some academics' lack of intention in pursuing doctoral studies. Gender inequities emerged as a finding in this study. Workforce strategies are required to address gender disparities and workload imbalances that have an impact on job satisfaction.