Welfare Considerations Underpinning Healthcare Workers’ Decision About Migration: The Case of Slovenia

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter explores the complex interplay of welfare-related considerations of healthcare workers underpinning their decision to emigrate. The concepts of welfare used here refer to the subjective perceptions of wellbeing of individual workers as well as statutory procedures and policies in place to provide them with social security and public services within different welfare-state regimes. Given the fact that healthcare workers are themselves providers of welfare to those in need of medical treatment and care, the chapter also discusses the workers’ ethical considerations about leaving patients behind on the one hand and pursuance of providing healthcare in other countries on the other. Hence, it explores how the provision of welfare to others builds into their own imaginaries and feeds the rationale behind the decision to migrate. The chapter builds on the findings from 27 semi-structured interviews conducted with healthcare workers who emigrated from Slovenia. Furthermore, the Slovenian case is used to illustrate the impact of their ground-level subjective decisions on systemic and normative frameworks in times of persistent shortages of healthcare workers in Slovenia.