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Nurses are a vital and unique workforce in Australia with some important workforce characteristics. Nursing is a sex segregated and aging workforce: more than 90 per cent of nurses are women and the average age of female registered nurses is 45 and of male nurses 43 years. Almost half of the nursing workforce works part-time with the average hours worked also declining in the past decade. On average, female nurses work approximately 7 hours less than male nurses. Currently, across most Australian states there are severe shortages identified in the nursing workforce with efforts at both national and state levels in increased training opportunities and retention. The aim of this study was to explore how nursing families manage working and caring for their families. We were interested in how work and family decisions intersected and the ways in which nursing employment shaped and was shaped by family life. Participants in the study were heterosexual couples living in urban Victoria - Melbourne or Geelong. Each of the couples had one partner employed as a nurse and at least one child under 12. In depth couple interviews were conducted on domestic decision making, careers, working hours, childcare, domestic labour and support networks. The interviews were tape recorded and fully transcribed and analysed thematically. The research findings offer rich and nuanced information about work and family preferences and constraints for nurses in contemporary Australia.

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