News release

From: The Lancet

The Lancet Public Health: Women make up nearly 70% of the global health workforce but hold its lowest-paid jobs, as the world faces a shortfall of 34 million workers

Despite nearly tripling since 1990, the global health workforce faces a shortage of more than 34 million workers, including doctors, nurses, midwives, dentists, and pharmacists, according to a new analysis from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study 2023, published in The Lancet Public Health journal.

In 2023, there were 122.1 million health workers globally, an increase of nearly 200% (81.2 million) since 1990. Women make up 68.9% of the workforce, including 90% of the 7.6 million community health workers worldwide, and have driven more than 70% of total health workforce growth. Yet women remain concentrated in lower-paid roles such as nursing and midwifery, while just 44% of physicians are women [see figure 1]. The same divide runs across the health workforce, including in dentistry and pharmacy. Even in fields where women predominate, most senior management and clinical leadership roles are held by men [1].

The analysis found that attaining moderate levels of the Sustainable Development Goal of universal health coverage [2] would require 34.4 million more health workers worldwide, including 7.1 million physicians, 23.9 million nurses and midwives, 1.8 million dentists, and 1.6 million pharmacists, with the largest shortfalls in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa [see table 2].

The authors say the findings underline the urgent need for a resilient, well-supported workforce, and that closing these gaps will require expanded training, better pay and retention for early-career staff, and gender-responsive policies such as paid parental leave, protection from violence and harassment, and clearer routes into leadership for women