IRNs were motivated to come and work in the UK by the prospect of earning a living. Some IRNs were motivated by the sheer possibility of making a living and working in their
to find work. Others were motivated by the fact that their earnings would allow them to save or send money to the family back home, and that even a modest amount would be very valuable there due to the current strength of the British currency. This, latter, motivation could be labelled working for back home.
As an example of the making a living motivation, a Filipino nurse explained that newly educated nurses in the Philippines often find it difficult to find a good job, and in some instances they have to gain professional working experience doing voluntary jobs in hospitals. In this perspective finding a job as a nurse abroad provides an appealing alternative.
However, the national overproduction of nurses can in some cases be a deliberate economic strategy. In other cases, the international employment strategy can represent an individual’s immediate response to a national and confined overproduction of nurses. As a Finnish nurse explained:
… one of the reasons why I came was that in Finland it was very difficult to get like full-time jobs.
(female, 30 years old, Finnish, white, F grade)
Another aspect of the motive of making a living has already been explored in the discussion of IRNs who came to work and travel in Europe even if they experienced a drop in pay.
While there could be a difficult employment situation in the home countries of IRNs, their financial motive could also be dominated by the wish to be working for back home. Another Filipino woman said that her motives to come were 70 per cent for the money, and she explained that the money allowed her to help her family back in the Philippines and her savings could provide her with financial security for her retirement. Supporting the
observation made in chapter 2 that there is a longstanding tradition in the Philippines for large numbers of nurses to be working abroad (Mejia 1978). The Filipino nurse explained that in her country it was a common arrangement that the person in the family who had gone to school would go to work abroad and send back money to help the family and possibly allow another family member to receive an education. In this way, the financial ambitions were part of a general family strategy of financial survival and progression. But even if the money was a main reason for her to come she emphasised that it was also important for her to have a chance to improve her professional skills, experience life in the UK and give her children an advantage in life by letting them experience another culture.
A Filipino nurse had previously worked in America and expected to achieve a similar living standard in the UK:
Before, when I was still out of UK, I’m expecting that it’s like America …within one year I could have my home and my car.
(male, 46 years old, Filipino, South Asian, D grade)
In some cases participants explained that they suffered a decrease in their personal living standards by coming to work in the UK, but their savings would have a high purchasing power in their countries of origin. As a South African participant explained in a discussion:
That’s why I came also here, because of the currency, that’s when you look at the pound, or the pound is equivalent to so much, then you could look at, it’s not much what we are getting here in fact, it’s only the currency that is helping us, but when you use it at home, it will help you and you will manage to do whatever you want it to do. … the cost of living with the Rand is not doing well, so when you take a pound here, a pound is basically, we are having better opportunity of taking those pounds, money to live and your children can get something.
(female, 54 years old, South African, black, D grade)
Hence, the financial motivation of individual IRNs is complex and directly interrelated with macro-economical issues of global exploitation and the relative financial power between nations. Due to global monetary inequality, we can observe the paradoxical situation that overseas nurses are attracted to come and work in the UK and experience a lower standard of life than a nursing salary in their country of origin would allow. But, at the same time, their modest savings as immigrant workers provide a substantial financial security in their countries of origin.
The data indicates that this motive to work for back home was most strongly represented among nurses from developing countries (due to the relative benefit from the strong British currency). The data further suggests that there could be a difference in the strategies between younger and older nurses. The younger might come both to make a living and be working for back home, and they might bring along their family and stay for a longer period or, perhaps, permanently. Older nurses from developing countries, however, tend to be planning to stay for a shorter period in the UK to use their last working years not so much to make a living here as to make savings to support their family and improve their welfare in retirement.
Back at home, I said I would retire at 55. I am 54 this year, so next year I was going to stop working, but now I said: “OK, if I am still OK here I can do another year” just to make the pension up.