A snapshot of Australian midwifery: A workforce survey

Midwives are the largest professional group in Australian maternity services. Understanding the current midwifery workforce and the issues midwives face is important for workforce planning.

Provide detailed understandings of the current Australian midwifery workforce, including potential attrition rates.

Descriptive cross-sectional online survey of registered midwives.

3286 midwives contributed to the data. Respondents most commonly reported their gender as woman, were aged 40 - 59, worked part-time, and practised in a metropolitan setting. Only 11.8 % of midwives worked in roles where they might provide continuity of midwifery care, yet 37.5 % expressed an interest in working in midwifery group practice. One third (36.6 %) were considering leaving midwifery, for reasons mostly related to their workplace. Poor workplace culture, understaffing, over-medicalisation, and being unable to provide safe midwifery care were commonly reported concerns.

This is the largest survey of the Australia midwifery workforce. While most midwives worked in clinical roles in the public sector, the range of roles was extremely diverse. Potential attrition rates are high, which would have a devastating impact on safe maternity care provision in Australia. More midwives want to work in continuity of midwifery carer models than are currently doing so.

Urgent action to improve midwifery workplaces is required to retain midwives and encourage greater workforce participation. Increasing midwifery student intakes, removing barriers to employment in flexible continuity of midwifery carer roles, and improving working conditions will contribute to a stronger future for the Australian midwifery workforce.