The internationalization of labour - The migration of nurses from Trinidad and Tobago (a case study)

This paper is based on an analysis of field work carried out in Trinidad and Tobago. It focuses on the occupational dissatisfaction among nurses in the public health services, which results in a massive exodus of nurses from the government health services to international destinations, particularly in the US. This emigration is enhanced by a change in US migration policy, specifically to facilitate the direction of labour migration. While the migration of nurses from the Caribbean to metropolitan destinations is not a new phenomenon, I argue that the size and direction of this wave of outward migration of female service workers represent new changes in the internationalization of labour in the present period. I examine what is being done in Trinidad and Tobago to retain nurses and enhance the health care services.