Demographic changes in Australia’s regulated health professions: 6-year trends
Sarah Anderson A B * , Eva Saar A C , Jacinta Evans A , Michael Rasmussen A , Sunita Bapuji Bayyavarapu A , Penelope Ann Elizabeth Main A , Samantha Stark A and Helen Townley A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A Research and Evaluation Team, Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, GPO Box 9958, Melbourne, Vic. 3001, Australia.
B School of Allied Health, Human Services and Sports, La Trobe University, Vic. 3083, Australia.
C Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Clayton, Vic. 3068, Australia.
* Correspondence to: sarah.anderson@ahpra.gov.au
Australian Health Review 47(2) 246-253 https://doi.org/10.1071/AH23004
Submitted: 3 January 2023 Accepted: 17 February 2023 Published: 14 March 2023
© 2023 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of AHHA. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)
Abstract
Objective Studies of Australian health workforce demographics tend to be limited to single professions, a set geographic area, or based on incomplete data. This study aims to comprehensively describe changes to the demographic characteristics of Australia’s regulated health professions over 6 years.
Methods Data were sourced from the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra) registration database, and a retrospective analysis of 15 of the 16 regulated health professions between 1 July 2015 and 30 June 2021 was conducted. Variables including profession, age, gender and state/territory locations for the practitioners’ principal places of practice were analysed descriptively and via appropriate statistical tests.
Results Changes in age, gender representation, and place of practice varied significantly and in different ways across the 15 professions. The total number of registered health practitioners increased by 141 161 (22%) from 2016 to 2021. The number of registered health practitioners per 100 000 population increased by 14% from 2016, with considerable variation across the professions. In 2021, women accounted for 76.3% of health practitioners across the 15 health professions, a significant increase of 0.5% points since 2016.
Conclusions Changes to demographics, especially in ageing workforces and feminising professions, can have implications for workforce planning and sustainability. Future research could build on this demographic trend data by investigating causes or undertaking workforce supply or demand modelling.
Keywords: demographics, gender-sensitive planning, health workforce, National Registration and Accreditation Scheme, workforce supply, trend.
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