About this research
Future-proofing Australia’s care economy by understanding the complex lives of health workers and their networks of care, in the context of international mobility
In the midst of worries about worker shortages in the health and care sectors, and in our attempts to attract and retain healthcare workers, it sometimes seems to be overlooked that healthcare workers are people too. As well as being skilled professionals, they are also members of families, communities and networks of care. They have varied experiences, personal histories, and hopes for the future. As they move, or consider moving, across borders, they remain connected through relationships of care, to parents, children, siblings, friends and colleagues. The concept of relational mobility is central to this three-year research project, funded by the Australian Research Council. The study will explore the perspectives of health workers and healthcare students, and their networks of care, to elicit a multi-perspective understanding of the current and future health workforce.
The role of digital communication and connection is also a key element of this project, complementing the focus on relational mobility. Transnational knowledge networks – of family, friends and colleagues – are integral to how migrants navigate their new environment, seek forms of belonging that recognise their past as well as their present, and negotiate practices of care both at home and in the workplace. In healthcare, the central role of digital platforms in the circulation of emerging knowledge and its embedding in clinical practice is increasingly being recognised, and has been accelerated by recent pandemic-related restrictions on mobility. The sharing of global expertise will be central to future-proofing the Australian healthcare workforce, for example in preparing for future pandemics. It has also been suggested that the rise of digitally-mediated medicine could play a role in solutions to the global healthcare worker shortages. This study embeds a focus on the mobility of knowledge and skills, both alongside and separate from the mobility of human bodies.
Moving beyond the instrumental framing of labour shortages simply as a workforce issue, this project deploys a relational mobilities framework to bring into focus the complex entanglements of care and interdependency, biographies and bodies, policies and practices that shape and structure the movement of people, information and emotion within and across borders. Any policy solutions seeking to address workforce shortages in the health and care sectors must take account of these complex entanglements or risk being ineffective or even deeply exploitative.
Whether you’re a researcher, policymaker or healthcare worker, I hope you find this project interesting and valuable. Please get in touch if you would like to collaborate, participate or just find out more.
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Dr Leah Williams Veazey
ARC DECRA Research Fellow, The University of Sydney