Nursing Professionalization in the Republic of Korea: The Nursing Act, Integrated Community Care, and the Institutionalization of Professional Authority.

Abstract

This article examines nursing professionalization in the Republic of Korea in light of two Korean laws enacted in 2024: the Nursing Act and legislation on integrated community care. Drawing on nursing professionalism and sociology of professions literature, we distinguish professionalism-the identity, knowledge, values, clinical judgment, ethics, and accountability constituting nursing practice-from professionalization, the institutional process through which nursing work gains jurisdiction, authority, legal protection, reimbursement, and social legitimacy. The Korean case shows that legal recognition creates visibility but does not by itself produce professional authority. Nursing role development in Korea is shaped by population aging, chronic illness, community-care demand, physician-delegated medical support tasks, cost-containment pressures, uneven workforce distribution, and weak reimbursement for nursing services. We argue that professionalization requires more than role expansion: it requires scope and role standards, education-credentialing alignment, legal authority and accountability, reimbursement mechanisms, nurse-led community models, and academic-practice-policy governance. The Korean case offers a theoretically useful example of the gap between statutory recognition and institutionalized professional authority.