Driven by ageing populations, rising incomes and greater expectations, the health and social care sectors employ more workers now than at any time in history in most OECD countries. In 2023, about one in every nine jobs (10.9%) was in health or social care, up from one in ten jobs (10.1%) in 2013 (Figure 8.1). In Nordic countries and the Netherlands, over 16% of all jobs are in health and social care. Between 2013 and 2023, the share of health and social care workers increased particularly rapidly in Türkiye, Chile and Korea, although it remained lower than the OECD average in these three countries.
Job numbers in the health and social care sector increased much more rapidly than in other sectors over the past few decades. On average across OECD countries, employment in health and social work increased by 30% between 2013 and 2023 – twice the rate of overall employment growth (Figure 8.2).
In most OECD countries, over 75% of workers in the health and social care sector are women (Figure 8.3). While women’s jobs tend to be concentrated more in lower-skilled and lower-paid occupations, slightly more than half of all doctors on average across OECD countries in 2023 were female (see section on “Doctors by age, gender and category”).
In most countries, hospitals are the largest employer of health and social care workers, employing about a quarter of all workers in this sector (see section on “Hospital workers”). Nurses make up the largest category of health and social care workers in most OECD countries, accounting for approximately 20‑25% of all workers. Personal care workers (including healthcare assistants and nursing aides in hospitals and nursing homes) also account for a relatively large share of workers in the sector.
Population ageing, technological change and rising incomes are expected to continue to boost demand for health and social care workers in the coming years. This is confirmed by national projections that forecast substantial employment growth in the health sector in the years ahead. For example, in the United States, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that employment in the healthcare and social assistance sector will grow more rapidly than in any other sector of the economy between 2023 and 2033, with a growth rate of over 10% over this decade, more than twice the projected employment growth rate in the economy as a whole. In Canada, the healthcare sector is also projected to post the largest increases in employment over the next decade. The demand for social care (long-term care) workers is also projected to increase strongly, mainly due to population ageing (OECD, 2023[1]).
As the share of older people continues to grow and the working-age population to shrink in most OECD countries, it will become increasingly challenging to continue to increase the number and share of the working-age population employed in health and long-term care without crowding out employment in other sectors of the economy and curtailing overall economic growth. For example, in Norway, where more than one in five people are already employed in health and social care, a recent report concluded that there is little scope for the health sector to increase its share of the workforce without drawing talent away from other priority sectors of the economy (Healthcare Personnel Commission, 2023[2]). The report also advised against large‑scale recruitment of health workers from abroad, stressing that reliance on foreign workers would introduce fragility into the system and be irresponsible from a global perspective. To meet the challenge of growing demand arising from population ageing, the Healthcare Personnel Commission recommended a multi-pronged strategy focussed on increasing productivity of existing human resources through increased task shifting, technology use and improved care integration.
