Career anchors and nurses' occupational choices.

There are two components of a career: the external career consisting of actual sequences of positions that are defined within an occupation, and the internal career, which comprises the subjective meanings attached to critical career events. A major cause of career dissatisfaction is a lack of realism in the internal career. Therefore, understanding transitions in the external career in the light of the perceptions and feelings occurring in the internal career is an important research issue. The theory of careers anchors will be reviewed with a summary of previous research. Development of a tool to measure career anchors is described, and findings of two recent studies of nurses in Canada and the USA are presented. The implications of the findings and areas for further research on nurses' career anchors will be discussed. Research has demonstrated that altruism, autonomy and family commitments remain pivotal values affecting nursing career decisions. If career oriented nurses are to be retained, a new model for nursing practice must be designed that has a better fit for women who are practicing a craft and an art as a career over a lifetime.