The aim of this article is to highlight early Finnish nursing in a special wartime context. Occupational development of nursing is envisioned by addressing at a more general level women's mutual relationships and the opportunities and obstacles of the process of occupational development. The article debates two main issues. Establishing occupational domains was a process of selecting suitable labour force and training women morally, as well. The hierarchical order of nursing is manifested especially in the questions of auxiliary labour and the so-called amateur scare. War was still a time of romanticism with visible military and religious models, but women also struggled for their right to have rights.
PurposeThis study seeks to examine the reconfiguration of professional groups in welfare service work through the lens of gendered inequalities in order to develop an inclusive research horizon that extends to the middle grade of care workers.Design/methodology/approachThe research design positions workforce change within a wider social and cultural context by highlighting occupational, educational and unionist orders from the viewpoint of Finnish practical nurses.FindingsA weakening anchorage in the welfare state and a differentiation of the patterns of recruitment, employment and industrial relations create segmentation, particular forms of exclusion, and identity instabilities. The article identifies the special vulnerability of the practical nurses institutionally embedded "in‐between" the upper and lower grades, the social and health sector, and the union traditions.Research limitations/implicationsThe national policy agenda on workforce change mainly follows the sectoral split and focuses on the established health professions. The unionist agenda of practical nurses in turn reflects interprofessional relationships and tribalism.Practical implicationsThis analysis of welfare service work provides insight into social and cultural transformations related to workforce change in a segmented and culturally diverse labour force and offers reflections on the changing nature of craft unionism.Originality/valueThis article argues for the added value of historicised, gender and culture sensitive analysis of the tensions between policy aims, educational, occupational and unionist orders for understanding reconfiguration through inequality‐producing processes.
Diaconal workers of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland have traditionally worked on the borderline between parish work and public welfare services. However, the role of parish diaconal workers in social services and nursing services has diminished as the Finnish welfare state has expanded. In conjunction with this downsizing, the so-called intra-church diaconate process has re-demarcated parish diaconal work. Andrew Abbott's theory of how professional jurisdictions are negotiated in the societal arenas in which different actors are engaged inspired the analysis in this article. Using Thomas F. Gieryn's concept of boundary work, the jurisdictional settlements that reshape professional parish diaconal work are examined. It is argued that institutional boundary work and disputes over whether the culture of diaconal work is secular or spiritual, serve to renew its cultural jurisdiction.
