Transnational nurse migration: Future directions for medical anthropological research

Transnational nurse migration is a serious global health issue in which inequitably distributed shortages hinder health and development goals. This article selectively reviews the literature on nurse migration that has emerged from nursing, health planning, and the social sciences and offers productive directions for future anthropological research. The literature on global nurse migration has largely focused on push/pull economic logic and the concept of brain drain to understand the causes and effects of nurse migration. These concepts obscure political-economic, historical, and cultural factors that pattern nurse migration and influence the complex effects of nurse migration. Global nurse care chain analysis helps illuminate the numerous nodes in the production and migration of nurses, and management of this transnational process. Examples are provided from the Philippines and India to illustrate ways in which this analysis may be deepened, refined and rendered more critical by anthropological research. •Reviews push/pull logic and brain drain concept in nurse migration literature.•Argues that previous frameworks obscure other causes and effects of migration.•Reviews global nurse care chain concept and examines understudied nodes.•Offers examples from the Philippines and India to illustrate gaps in the research.•Suggests directions for future ethnographic research on nurse care chains.