Abstract

Consumer interest in alternative medicine has expanded greatly in western societies in recent years. This has been associated, among other things, with the rapid growth of the numbers and range of practitioners of such therapies. This article discusses from a neo-Weberian perspective the present influence of this development on the nature and form of the health care division of labour, with special reference to such trends as the increasing professionalization of alternative medicine and the growing incorporation of such therapies into orthodox medical delivery systems. The article also considers the possible future impact of rising public interest in therapies currently defined as alternative on the occupational structure in health care. Of particular interest in this context is the extent to which such unorthodox practices are likely to pose a challenge to long-established patterns of biomedical dominance in the division of labour.