Dive Brief:
- A new study in Health Affairs says the number of registered nurses actually is increasing, but that’s partly because so many older nurses are postponing retirement.
- The size of the R.N. workforce has surpassed forecasts from a decade ago, growing to 2.7 million in 2012 instead of peaking at 2.2 million, researchers said. Much of the difference is due to a surge in new nursing graduates, but there is also a large number of baby-boomer RNs.
- Researchers said that a doubling of the annual output of U.S. nursing graduates over the past decade, up from roughly 74,000 in 2002 to 181,000 in 2012, plus the economic downturn, cannot fully explain the unexpectedly large R.N. workforce today. There is a third factor: Baby boomers ages 49 to 67 account for more than 40% of current R.N.s, so the size of the overall R.N. workforce is particularly sensitive to when these baby-boomer nurses choose to retire.
Dive Insight:
Some of the study's findings were somewhat surprising, in terms of how long registered nurses continue to work at such a physically demanding job—especially in comparison to decades ago. From 1969 to 1990, 47% of R.N.s were working at age 62, and 9% were on the job at age 69. By contrast, from 1991 to 2012, nearly three-quarters, or 74%, of R.N.s were working at age 62, and 24% at age 69.
Researchers said that, because many R.N.s tend to shift out of hospital settings as they age, employers seeking nurses for non-hospital roles, such as chronic care management, "may welcome (and seek to capitalize on) the growing numbers of experienced R.N.s potentially able to fill these positions."