Is being a registered nursen a working class occupation

[BubbleIceTea]

I've spent the morning reading through the Lucy Letby press conference thread, 40 pages long.
In the thread, one poster has stated that registered nurses are working class, in a working class occupation.
Is this true?
I'm shocked by this.
I've always regarded trained registered nursing as a resolutely middle class occupation.

Requires a uniform = working class.

Think police, firefighter etc.

I'm a retired nurse. My last role required 2 degrees -(though clients were often shocked to hear this when they showed interest in joining the profession😂)..Many nurses now have a Masters Degree. It's one of those jobs where you can be continuously completing post grad. studies, throughout your career. However, I have never met a nurse who was not from a working class background. The salary does not match the demands of role.

In my experience nursing attracts people from a variety of backgrounds. Nurses diversify into all kinds of roles so corporate roles, regulation, education as well as therapist or advanced clinical or specialist roles. They don’t always wear uniforms, you might not always know they are a registrant but they are still a nurse. Nursing can therefore offer social mobility through continuing professional development in a way that resolutely working class jobs cannot always achieve. It’s classless.

Who cares as long as they can do the job?

TD;LR - for statistical purposes it is more complicated than the old 'class system' but if you were to apply that roughly to new statistical models nurses would be considered solidly middle-class.

This is how ONS groups occupations now, so slightly more nuanced - https://www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/classificationsandstandards/otherclassifications/thenationalstatisticssocioeconomicclassificationnssecrebasedonsoc2010

2.1 The NS-SEC has been constructed to measure the employment relations and conditions of occupations (see Goldthorpe 2007). Conceptually, these are central to showing the structure of socio-economic positions in modern societies and helping to explain variations in social behaviour and other social phenomena.

These have then been broadly grouped: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/state-of-the-nation-2024-local-to-national-mapping-opportunities-for-all/chapter-1-introduction#:~:text=There%20are%208%20'analytic'%20classes,and%20'lower%20working%20class'.

Nurses are in NS-SEC2. This groups also includes teachers, managers, journalists.

Using an older statistical model with Food Standards agency nurses are B (senior staff) this groups includes all doctors below consultant grade. Or C1, C1 includes police constables and primary school teachers: https://www.food.gov.uk/research/ewcb-2022-appendix-3-socio-economic-groupings

Just to say, class and socio-economic group have more been about the type of work you do rather than your salary. Many obviously working. Lass roles would traditionally pay substantially note than middle class roles - for example coal miners, and offshore oil workers (who are not engineers).

I have worked in the NHS for many years with hundreds of nurses and they are a mixed bunch. My impression would be that most people who have gone in to nursing are from a working class background but by no means all.

The switch to uni based training and degree qualification did not make it a "resoloutely middle class" occupation as someone in the thread has claimed. There are plenty of working class people who hold degrees, including those who complete an apprentiship and access further study

The salary range is similar to that of a skilled manual workers and technicians; although the starting point on the pay scale may be below this.

I think it really depends on how you chose to define it.

I've been a nurse for over 30 years

I have many many letters after my name from my original training and further training I have done since

I'm now an 8b and consider myself working class , always have been and always will be .

I would say anyone doing nursing assistant/auxiliary care assistant roles are working class as are NQ degree nurses.

Once they are in a promoted post eg matron or whatever they call that role now. That is call middle class.

Doctor in scrubs?
Barrister?
Judge?
Army officer?
Pilot?

@LondonLawyer I can only say that DMs friends came directly from school and started as nursing auxiliaries at 16 prior to training. There was a requirement for “war work” so of course there were other recruits into the profession. Yes, they worked and studied at the same time. No blocks of study because it was vital to work amongst bombs: more than fill time for essentially pocket money as the nursing hostel was fully catered. However people with limited educational ability would never pass the exams and we had loads of grammar schools at that point. Being a SRN was considered worthwhile. Maybe our relatives worked together!

I don't think working or middle class works so well, there more newly defined emergent service worker class fits better

I’m not sure of the purpose of this thread. This website has an obsession with nurses and teachers and running them down. All I can think of is it’s an internalised misogyny. You don’t have thread after thread picking apart and analysing typically male dominated jobs.

Nursing is unique in that it’s a highly skilled safety critical, in demand profession that is paid relative peanuts. That is because it is worked in by women and not because of the so called ‘class’ of those women. Nursing is a diverse (except for sex) group of people and always has been.

Yeah, that's not at all how class works.

Obviously incorrect. Wing commander. Police commissioner. Admiral. Pilot. Judge

Also different levels of qualification.

Both of my elder sisters qualified in the early 1970s. In those days the main qualification was State Registered Nurse. This was a 3 year course which was a combination of placement on wards to get experience at different types of nursing and time in the lecture theatre, plus lots of private study and final exams at the end. There was a minimum age of 18 and some academic requirements, I think it was something like 5 O-levels. That might not sound much now but 50 odd years ago getting 5 O levels was a pretty decent achievement. Neither of my sisters went to Grammar school but they both managed to get the required number of O levels, one of them after some resits. Both qualified and had successful careers in nursing.

There was a lower qualification called State Enrolled Nurse which did not have the same entry requirements and was only a two year course. I think with that you could work on wards but never be a ward sister, for example.

Lady X, born to a landed gentry family could become a nurse. Would that make her working class? Of course it wouldn't.

This MN obsession with all the markers which define people into a certain class because they earn this much, shop at certain retailers, do that job, have this interest or hobby - well it drives me round the twist.

Well they aren’t in Call the Midwife. I think nursing was always a respectable profession for quite well to do girls to go into. Patsy Mount and Chummy for example! It’s probably more working class nowadays.

Enrolled nurses were bring phased out when I started my nurse training in the 1993 ,whilst the training wasent as rigorous as registered nurses from my understanding they still had exams and essays etc to pass ,and they might still have had to have 2/3 Olevels
And yes whilst theu had some responsibility, they didn't have the sme level of responsibility as registered nurses
When I started my training the entry level was still Set as a minimum of 5 Olevels/ GCSE,s ( at grade C and above) including English and Maths or a science
Alternatively candidates could sit a DC test which was a beleive an IQ test if they didn't have the minimum entry requirements
Ironically we now have Nursing associates which is a two year course and appears to be similar to the enrolled nurses, role .

This is so true.

By contrast, IT used to be female dominated. ‘Coding’ of early computers was seen as women’s work and it was badly paid.

Now that it’s male dominated, it’s highly paid and seen as a prestigious job

I think we all need to resist the Scourge of the class labels….it’s outmoded and creates underclasses. Be done with them! By gad! Says this woman born in a working class environment and down with inverted snobbery/ snobbery too!

Traditionally working class skills were acquired through paid on the job training, via apprenticeships, and middle class professions through education which sacrifices several years of potential earnings.

Why?

Your first post gives the impression, to me anyway, that you consider it somehow a slur to describe a person or profession as working class. Is that the case?

On the contrary it could be argued that nursing is one of the hardest degree courses. The students have to do several assignments each year, as well as practicals (OSCEs), and in the last year exams and a dissertation as well. All alongside doing 2300 unpaid hours of placement - 12.5 hour shifts, often overnight. Young people doing traditional courses are in a completely different universe when it comes to university experience.

And now there is a freeze on recruitment so the big selling point - walking into a job on graduation - has gone too.

There’s no doubt it’s hard work, but not as intellectually demanding as other courses.

and it won’t be - it’s a practical course. Doesn’t mean you aren’t clever if you do it.