A workforce profile comparison of practising and non-practising midwives in Australia: Baseline data from the Midwives and Nurses e-cohort Study Fiona E. Bogossian, RN, RM, MPH, PhD (Associate Professor), Maryann H. Long, CNM, MPH (PhD Scholar), Christine Benefer, BSc (Hons), Grad Dip (Data Manager: e-cohort Studies), Lindy J. Humphreyes Reid, RN, BN, MHP (Project Manager: Nurses & Midwives e-cohort Study), Susan E.M. Kellett, RN, BN (Hons), Grad Dip (Periop) (Project Manager: Graduate e-cohort Study) n , Isabella Zhao, RN, BN (Hons I) (PhD Scholar), Catherine Turner, RN, BA, MN, PhD (Professor) The University of Queensland, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Edith Cavell Building, Herston Campus, Herston, Queensland 4029, Australia article info Article history: Received 21 September 2010 Received in revised form 1 March 2011 Accepted 1 March 2011 Keywords: Cohort Workforce Midwife Shortage abstract Existing workforce data, as an estimate of the current capability of the midwifery workforce to provide midwifery care, is confounded by systematic reporting issues that may overestimate the potential of the existing midwifery workforce. This paper reports the characteristics of qualified Australian midwives who responded to the baseline data collection in the Midwives and Nurses e-Cohort Study and compares those who are currently practising in midwifery with those who are not. Currently practising midwives represented only 52% of those respondents who identified as midwives and the profile of the typical midwife is female, aged over 40 years, Australian, married or in a de facto relationship. She has been registered for over 10 years, educated to postgraduate diploma level and currently works in a clinical midwifery role in a hospital for less than 35 hours per week. Specific deficits in the Australian midwifery workforce namely low numbers of indigenous midwives, independent practitioners and midwives suitably qualified to teach and undertake research in academia are identified. Drawing on the nationally representative e-cohort data, this cross-sectional analysis identifies for the first time the real face of the Australian midwifery workforce and provides an evidence-based foundation for future workforce planning and a methodology for other countries interested in accurately monitoring their actual and potential midwifery workforce. Crown Copyright & 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction The undersupply of health workers is recognised as a global phenomenon. The World Health Report (2006) constituted world- wide public recognition of the global shortage of health-care work- ers of almost 4.3 million doctors, midwives, nurses and support workers. However, according to Kinfu et al. (2009), the true situation is more complex. Use of the term ‘shortage’ obscures the related challenges posed by geographic mal-distribution (Gerein et al., 2006) and, in some countries, an excess of physicians relative to midwives and nurses (World Health Organisation, 2006). Indeed conditions of shortage, mal-distribution and provider mix may underpin the relative lack of progress toward achievement of United Nations Millennium Development Goals 4 (reduction of child mortality) and 5 (improvement in maternal health) in several regions (United Nations Population Fund, 2010b). Mid- wives are identified as the ideal providers of maternity care (World Health Organisation, 2005) yet even in the developing world, the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates a deficit of 350,000 midwives (United Nations Population Fund, 2010a). References to midwife shortages appear in the literature as early as 1968 in Japan (Hirosawa, 1968) and the 1970s in Scandinavia (Keto, 1971; Karkinen, 1974; Henriksen, 1978) and the United King- dom (UK) (Burslem, 1979). Evidence that remuneration (van der Meijden, 1961) and lack of child care (Fanning, 1965) were contribut- ing to midwifery and nursing shortages became evident nearly half a century ago. However, in the developed world, the problem has taken on a new dimension as the largest age cohort of practising midwives approaches retirement (Jevitt and Beckstead, 2004; Wray et al., 2009), and young people who could replace them are instead choosing other careers (World Health Organisation, 2010). Factors affecting contem- porary midwives’ workforce participation include, but are not limited Contents lists available at ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/midw Midwifery 0266-6138/$ - see front matter Crown Copyright & 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.midw.2011.03.001 n Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: f.bogossian@uq.edu.au (F.E. Bogossian), maryann.long@gmail.com (M.H. Long), c.benefer@uq.edu.au (C. Benefer), l.humphriesreid@uq.edu.au (L.J. Humphreyes Reid), s.kellett@uq.edu.au (S.E.M. Kellett), i.zhao@uq.edu.au (I. Zhao), catherine.turner@uq.edu.au (C. Turner). Midwifery 27 (2011) 342–349