Må sykepleieryrket være et deltidsyrke?

Fifty percent of Norway's nursing workforce in elderly care work part time. this articel investigates how part-time employment has been normalized within the nursing profession in Norway, and it discusses whether nursing needs to be a part -time profession also in the future. We found that nurses seem to accept thst that the work has to be organized with part-time employees . The nurses argued that a gigh share of part-time positions is necessary to meet the demand for nursing personell on weekends. Further it is argued that employers need a flexible workforce, available on short notice to fill the gaps suddenly arising in the shift plan due to illness etc. In this way the profesional culture justifies a high rate of part-tme employees. several research projects point at differnet ways of organizing the workforce in such a way that more nurses work full-time. This article therefore suggests that employers and employees need to compromise to solve this problem.