The table depicts the number of doctors, while the two bar charts illustrate the percentage of them, segmented by genders and nationalities in 1986, 1996 and 2006.
Overall, Australia recorded a marked increase in the number of doctors across the years, with Australian doctors outnumbering foreign ones. In addition, the gender gap among doctors tended to narrow, whilst the figures for both genders showed various fluctuations.
In 1986, the total number of doctors was 300,000, 55% of whom were male while another 45% were female. A decade later recorded a significant increase to 640,000 doctors in total, with the job being female-dominated at 55%, 10% higher than the figure for their counterparts. Over the same period, the proportion of Australian doctors fell slightly from 61% to 57%, while that of doctors born overseas inched up by 4% to 43%.
By 2006, the number of doctors working in Australia reached a massive 800,000 in total. In the same year, the gender gap was reduced to just 3%, registering 51% for males and 48% for females. Meanwhile, the proportion of Australian doctors rose back to 61% and still higher than that of international ones, which fell back to 39% in 2006.