How Many Doctors Do the World's Largest Economies Have?

After the rape and murder of a 31-year-old resident doctor at a medical college in West Bengal's capital Kolkata on Friday, protests and walkouts by doctors erupted around the country, including in cities like New Delhi, Lucknow and Mumbai. Violence against doctors isn't new in India. In a study released in 2017 by the Indian Medical Association, 75 percent of respondents claimed to have experienced some violence at their workplace, with 50 percent saying they suffered physical attacks.

According to recent reporting by DW, one of the reasons could be the state of the medical care sector in the country. With a rapidly growing population comes the need for improved medical coverage. However, large swathes of the healthcare sector in India are privatized, which experts interviewed by DW said leads to a lack of trust in hospitals and other medical institutions, and, as data by the World Health Organization shows, the country spent just 3 percent of its GDP on public health in 2021.

This is also evident in the number of doctors per 10,000 people, which is drastically below other members of the top 10 economies by nominal GDP. As our chart based on data from the Global Health Workforce database shows, the global average is 20.2, while India only has 7.3 doctors per 10,000 residents. This places the Asian country at the bottom of the top 10 economies, even though it came in fifth in nominal GDP in 2023. Brazil is also close to the global average with 21.4, while countries like the United States, Italy and Germany have 36 doctors or more per 10,000 residents. However, high public health spending doesn't necessarily translate to good medical coverage. The U.S. leads the world in health expenditure in percent of GDP, but only ranks third in doctor density and is the only highly industrialized developed nation without universal basic healthcare.

Zooming out, African countries rank lowest on the list, with the Central African Republic only having 0.2 doctors per 10,000 residents. Eswatini is first among all African states with 15.9 doctors per 10,000 people. Topping the list are Cuba (94.3 doctors per 10,000 residents), Monaco (88.9 doctors per 10,000 residents) and Sweden (71.5 doctors per 10,000 residents).