Skip to main content

Table 5 Estimated and projected global needs-based and demand-based shortages of health workers, by World Bank income group and WHO region, 2013 and 2030 [shortages are positive, surpluses are negative]

From: Forecasting imbalances in the global health labor market and devising policy responses

 

Needs-based shortages (Need-Supply)

Demand-based shortages (Demand-Supply)

2013

2030

2013

2030

World Bank Income Group (# of countries)

 Low (29)

4 202 379

5 746 161

− 55 173

15 498

 Lower-middle (44)

9 003 163

6 495 262

1 029 616

3 723 638

 Upper-middle (46)

3 658 626

1 746 981

5 276 413

11 929 697

 High (46)

81 361

74 838

305 367

− 167 623

WHO Region (# of countries)

 Africa (43)

4 194 741

6 088 186

− 768 647

− 661 859

 Americas (28)

708 021

503 870

441 453

2 545 754

 Eastern Mediterranean (15)

1 569 814

1 508 924

367 081

1 590 107

 Europe (50)

78 394

57 749

1 485 608

1 355 508

 South-East Asia (8)

6 661 765

4 547 443

192 068

2 038 195

 Western Pacific (21)

3 732 794

1 357 071

4 838 663

8 633 507

World (165)

16 945 529

14 063 242

6 556 224

15 501 211

  1. Sources: [1, 2]
  2. Notes: Health worker refers to physicians, nurses/midwives, and other health workers. For demand-based shortages, positive totals represent shortages while negative totals represent surpluses. The total needs-based shortages reported in this table are lower than the totals reported by the WHO report because this table computes needs-based shortages for 165 countries (to correspond with the demand estimates) whereas the WHO report computed needs-based shortages for 210 countries