First Peoples nursing and midwifery academic workforce across Australia and New Zealand

First Peoples nursing and midwifery academic workforce across Australia and New Zealand

Aim: Promoting a representative and supportive industry for First Peoples’ academic staff is a key tenet of Australian (AUS) and New Zealand (NZ) universities, and fundamental to strengthening the First Peoples health workforce. Surprisingly across both countries, information about the First Peoples’ Nursing and Midwifery academic workforce is unknown, but this knowledge is essential for developing strategies to improve representation. The aim of the study was to understand the profile of the nursing and midwifery academic workforce.
Methods: Following ethics approval, a cross-sectional study was conducted using an online survey of all 43 organisations who are members of the ANZ Council of Deans Nursing and Midwifery. Data collected were demographic, academic qualifications, and other employment details of First Peoples’ academic staff. Data were analysed descriptively.
Results: Thirty organisations responded (AUS n = 27, NZ n = 6) reporting a total of 55 First Peoples’ staff. NZ universities had between one and four First Peoples’ staff members. Ten Australian universities had none. Other Australian universities reported a range between 1 and 9 First Peoples’ staff. Staff mean age was 45.6 years (range 22-64), and the highest qualifications held were PhD (42.6%) or Master’s degree (38.9%). Most were employed at lecturer level (72.7%; includes associate and senior lecturers) and employed in a full-time continuing position (69.1%). There were 10 appointed into a professoriate level position (18.1%). Workload was allocated to teaching (39.4%), research (38.0%) and service/engagement (17.1%). Some universities separately allocated workload to scholarship activities (5.5%).
Conclusion: Many universities do not currently employ First People’s nursing or midwifery academic staff although NZ universities were more likely to include First Peoples academics, potentially reflecting the higher proportional population of Māori people. As most First Peoples’ staff hold lower-level academic positions, greater succession planning through increased mentorship and professional development is urgently needed.

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