More than 3 in 10 physicians in the world’s wealthiest countries — the income bracket that includes the U.S. — are 55 or older and approaching retirement, according to a report published by the World Health Organization.
To gauge the toll, WHO combined each country’s projected 2024-2030 shift in age structure with a standard curve of health costs by age, estimating not just how many workers countries will have by 2030, but how many they will need to keep pace with an older, costlier-to-serve population. The result: high-income countries face the steepest aging-driven health workforce gap of any income group by 2030, a shortfall that is separate from — and adds to — WHO’s broader global shortage estimate.
Four things to know:
1. High-income countries have the oldest physician workforce of any income group, with 31.2% of physicians 55 or older, more than three times the 8.9% share in low-income countries. Nursing follows a similar pattern: 20.2% of nurses in high-income countries are 55 or older.
2. Populations in wealthy countries are aging faster than the global population overall. People 65 and older already make up nearly 1 in 5 residents in high-income countries, compared with 1 in 10 worldwide, and that share is projected to grow another 13% by 2030.
3. WHO’s age-adjusted analysis found that 35 high-income countries will not have enough health workers by 2030 to maintain 2024 care levels — a shortfall of roughly 527,000 workers, or 3.8% of their projected 2030 workforce.
4. The Region of the Americas, which includes the U.S., already has one of the highest physician densities in the world at 27 physicians per 10,000 population, though that figure varies widely by country (from 2.9 to 85.1 per 10,000). Still, nine countries in the region are projected to fall short of maintaining their 2024 care levels, with a combined gap of nearly 295,000 healthcare workers by 2030.
