Asian Journal of Pregnancy and Childbirth

Background: Overseas employment can appeal to licensed midwives for personal, professional and financial reasons. This study examined the factors associated with overseas career motivation among licensed midwives in Iloilo City.

Methods: A quantitative descriptive-correlational design was employed. A purposively selected sample of 100 licensed midwives who had considered working abroad completed a validated, researcher-developed 50-item questionnaire using a four-point response scale. Descriptive statistics summarised respondent characteristics, factor scores and overseas career motivation, while Spearman's rank-order correlation assessed associations.

Results: Overall overseas career motivation was moderate (mean = 2.89, SD = 0.78). Personal factors (mean = 2.91, SD = 0.51), professional factors (mean = 2.88, SD = 0.49) and financial factors (mean = 2.98, SD = 0.67) each received moderate overall ratings. Desire for international exposure was the highest-rated personal domain (mean = 3.06, SD = 0.66); quality of local working conditions was the highest-rated professional domain (mean = 3.02, SD = 0.52); and salary and benefits was the highest-rated financial domain (mean = 3.05, SD = 0.69). Overseas career motivation was positively associated with overall personal (Spearman's rho = 0.565), professional (rho = 0.667) and financial factors (rho = 0.763), all p < .001.

Conclusion: Financial considerations showed the strongest association with overseas career motivation in this selected sample. The findings may inform discussions about retaining midwives locally but do not establish causation or predict actual migration.