The table and charts illustrate the number of doctors working in Australia, along with the proportion of domestic and foreign doctors and their gender distribution over a 20-year interval.
Overall, the number of doctors in Australia continuously witnessed a massive increase during the period. Furthermore, it’s readily apparent that local doctors are more preferable compared to foreign ones, while the preference for gender changes over time.
In the first 10 years of the period, the number of medical practitioners working in Australia was only 300.000 before it surged to more than twice of that at 640.000 in the next decade. In the last 10 years, the speed slowed down and ended up at 800.000 doctors.
Looking at the distribution of genders, 1986 and 2006 shared the similar trend with the dominance of male doctors at around 56% and 53%, respectively. However, in 1996, female doctors seemed more prevalent by people with the reversed ratio compared to 1986.
Focusing on nationalities, 1986 and 2006 shared the same ratio with 60% of domestic doctors and only 40% of foreign doctors, while in 1996, the number of local medical practitioners slightly dropped to 55%.
