• Investment World
• eWorld
• Catalyst
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest

Sreedevi Jacob

The US and the UK are the new hotspots for Kerala nurses, after their successful foray into the Gulf job market. But amidst all that financial success, they face a peculiar problem — a shortage of bridegrooms.

Women nurses from Kerala don't rush to the Gulf any more. From 2003, the US and the UK have become favoured destinations, ever since the two countries relaxed qualification norms for nurses. The money is good — a nurse in the US/UK earns $35,000-50,000 annually; and several privileges such as a green card, housing and other facilities, come by easily.

Right from 1947, Kerala has produced more nurses than any other state. By 1991, it had 62 nursing schools. And in 2003 alone, 17 private nursing schools opened across Kerala.

Officials say that every day almost 80-100 attestations are granted to nurses seeking jobs abroad. The demand is for both experienced and fresh recruits.

While relaxation of rules is the primary reason for the rush to the US and UK, the significant increase in the geriatric population in the two countries is also an important factor. Sony Thomas, a social worker, says: "Because of better health care services and higher living standards in the US and UK, people have a longer lifespan, resulting in more old age homes. And unlike in India, it is mandatory to have a proportionate number of social workers and nurses, depending on the number of inmates in the old age home."

However, the new boom has its flip side. During the 1990s, many girls from poor, agricultural, Christian families took bank loans, often by pledging property, and joined a nursing course for a job in the Gulf. In the Gulf, they not only found good jobs but also earned enough to clear family debts. Most also married Indian men settled in those countries. But in the US and UK, the scenario is a bit different. Says Minimol Mathew, who is working at a London hospital for the last 18 months and is in Kochi for a holiday, "I am here for a month, and hope to at least get engaged before I go back." She is voicing a pressing problem that many young nurses in the UK and US face: shortage of grooms.

"Kerala has been one of the biggest exporters of human resources to the Gulf for decades. People with all manner of qualification went there. Getting a decent marriage proposal wasn't really difficult there. But it's different in other countries," says Minimol.

She is right. Since the early-1970s, typists, labourers, engineers and architects — skilled and unskilled workers — all migrated from Kerala to the Gulf, which was almost like another home for many Keralites. But first-generation Keralites in the UK and US are generally highly skilled professionals, like software engineers or management graduates. And they are not ready to settle down with nurses.

This stigma operates among Indian families who feel nurses do the dirty job of touching "unknown" men. Researchers say Indian nurses have never got their due because of this negative stereotyping.

The story of Kerala nurses who migrated abroad has been the focus of study for several researchers, primarily because instead of men migrating first, women went first, settled in their jobs and later sponsored their husbands and families.

Sheba George, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles, in her recently released book, When Women Come First: Gender and Class in Transnational Migration, says that in this unusual migration process, women became the "uncontested breadwinners" in their households and this resulted in "drastic changes in gender relations..." However, she mentions that the women continue to face the stigma of performing a `dirty' job.

"Although nursing is a sought-after profession abroad, Indians still stigmatise it as dirty," says Ivy Cherian, who worked in the Gulf for three years before moving to the US in 2004. "Our people are happy about the money we bring home. But — though they don't tell us so openly — they feel that interacting closely with the sick is not `respectable'.

"No Keralite professional in the UK or US wants to marry a nurse — unless, of course, he falls in love with her. In fact, even if our husbands were not earning, we could single-handedly manage a family with our salaries; but this would inevitably lead to emotional disturbances in the relationship. So we have to look for qualified men — but they are not interested in us!"

Even nurses working within Kerala (mostly in the private sector) face the same stigma: they are way down in the marriage market.

While women continue to flock nursing schools, more and more young men in the state are opting for hotel management or social work as a career. But the salary is modest in these sectors in Kerala, unless they can work for a world class hotel chain or an international NGO. However, things may change now that the demand for such professionals has increased in the US and UK. "We need a little time to position ourselves in the host country, but the salary and benefits are almost on par with that of the nurses," says Thomas.

This trend may also offer a possible solution to the shortage of partners for nurses in these two countries.

Women's Feature Service

Picture by H. Satish

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Movie & dinner

Copyright © 2005, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line