Exit as market culture: nurse turnover and employer responses in Sweden

Nurse turnover is a central driver of the growing care deficits that characterise contemporary capitalism. In Sweden, despite policy efforts to improve retention, nurse shortages persist – destabilising care provision and intensifying workplace strain. This article explores how turnover and employer responses in the Swedish healthcare sector reflect the contradictory dynamics of market culture. Drawing on document and media analysis, and informed by feminist-Polanyian theories of care and Hirschman’s exit-voice framework, the study shows that nurses respond to deteriorating conditions through exit, while regional authorities adopt market-based strategies selectively. Market logics are embraced when they enhance managerial control but resisted when nurses act as autonomous market agents. This ambivalence reveals deeper tensions in the governance of care work under neoliberalism. The article contributes to scholarship on the care crisis, marketisation, and the transformation of professional subjectivities in human service organisations.