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.

Definitely worthwhile, and you certainly had to be capable not just of studying but of studying on top of a 60-80 hour working week. But I don't think you had to have a specific education or background; my grandmother and her sisters certainly weren't stupid, and coped with all the studying required, but had left school at the minimum leaving age, no grammar or secondary education at all.
The "studying around working" wasn't just a wartime necessity, it was the permanent structure. My grandmother said they usually held lectures from 8am to 10am so that the probationer nurses coming off night shifts could sleep through them attend.
She trained in the Liverpool Royal Infirmary, moved to London in 1935 after she qualified, and was a staff nurse - sister - matron in a couple of different hospitals in London throughout the Second World War.

I think it's more that there was a brief period when pay wasn't quite so bad. But nurses' pay was usually absolutely terrible. During the Second World War a staff nurse in London was paid about half what a landgirl was paid, after deducting board and lodging for each. Landgirls obviously worked hard, long hours, but there was little required in terms of education or training, and the nurses' hours were at least as long.

My aunt only had her Leaving Certificate. She'd left school at 12 in order to earn for the family - had to get permission to sit the certificate two years early, but was allowed to do so because she was top of the class and the family needed her earnings.

ETA She would have been 21 when the war broke out.

Hmm. Don't think that was always the case, although in some places it might have applied.

I did a Computer Science degree in the early 1980s and spent my summer holidays and one whole year out getting work experience in the computer department of a large organizations that was still a nationalised industry in those days.

Elements of what you say were certainly evident. It was a very hierarchical set up and in general the software was designed and specified by systems analyst or analyst/programmers, often down to detailed flow chart level. Then "coders" turned these very detailed designs into code written on special coding sheets. These sheets were then sent to a data prep department who typed them in to the main frame. It was the case that most of the people higher up the chain were male, at coder level quite a lot more women but still some men. Data prep exclusively female.

I found it a little strange as:
a. I was used to being one of only a small handful of women on a largely male dominated course
b. I was used to defining my own algorithms for things by then.

Actually the approach and attitudes to the work were already starting to change even then and the team I was on were happy mostly to cut straight to letting the coders do more of the real work.

Think High Court Judge, senior airline pilot, Army General, Admiral.....

My ex taught a specialised module on a university nursing degree course years ago. Two things shocked him. The overall really poor level of intellect and also, surprisingly, obvious lack of compassion and empathy in many of the students.

It's working class.

I think by the time you started work in the 80’s,
it was male dominated.

i was talking about much further back. The 60’s saw a decrease in women and it become male
dominated.

most of the programmers working at Bletchley Park during WW2 were women and that wasn’t just because the men had gone off to fight.

I would say nursing is a middle class profession as it requires a degree. Nurses aren't particularly well paid but that's not really the same thing as class.