The table shows the number of doctors in Australia, while the chart compares the doctors according to their gender and birthplace at ten-year intervals between 1986 and 2006. Overall, the number of doctors underwent a steady increase. Notably, although males were always dominant in the medicine landscape, the gender gap narrowed over time, and the same trend is true for the birthplaces of doctors.
In terms of numbers, there were 23,720 doctors at the beginning of the period. Thereafter, the figure rose dramatically and reached a whopping 35,450 in 2006. Notably, the numbers increased by the nearly same amount in each decade.
With regard to gender, the biggest gender discrepancy could be seen in 1986, when the ratio of men to women doctors was 3:1. Although the percentage of males was always higher than that of females, in 2006 the male-to-female doctors’ ratio reached 3:2. Interestingly, the same pattern could be seen in the ratio of native and immigrant doctors. In 1986, the majority of doctors were Australia-born, with over 60%, while foreign-born doctors accounted for the remaining 40%. Thereafter, the gap started closing, and in 2006 the percentage of native-born and foreign-born doctors reached parity.