The table provides the number of doctors in Australia in three different years with a ten-year interval (1986, 1996, and 2006), while the bar graphs illustrate the proportion of doctors categorized by their genders and places of birth in the same country throughout the above given period.
Overall, it is clear from the table that there was an upward trend in the numbers of doctors. Moreover, male doctors exceeded their female counterparts in all three years, while Australian born doctors declined in the following three years, reaching parity with those born abroad.
In detail, in 1986, the total number of doctors who worked in Australia accounted for 23,720, and it grew by almost 6,000 every ten year, amounting to 29,060 in 1996, before rising to 35,450 in 2006.
In terms of gender, three times more men used to work as doctors than females, standing at about 75% and 25%, respectively, in 1986. From the time onward, the figures followed different directions, with males declining to 60% as the number of female doctors climbed to 39% in 2006. A similar trend is observed in the next chart showing birthplaces of doctors who worked in Australia. In 1986, more than half of all doctors were natives, whereas in 1996, the number of doctors witnessed a slight changed. Eventually, 2006 saw an equal proportion of doctors who were born in Australia and overseas, at 50%.