Demographics and distribution of australia's medical immigrant workforce

Abstract

Background: International medical graduates (IMGs) have made important contributions to Australian healthcare since colonization. Recent published data have documented source countries and characteristics of IMGs undertaking the examinations of the Australian Medical Council. However, information about those currently practicing in Australia is limited.

Objective: To analyze a cross section of IMGs currently practicing in Australia to determine patterns of change in donor countries, other demographic characteristics, geographical locations, and their areas of specialization.

Methods: A random sample of all practitioners on a national database was interrogated for their country of first medical qualification. Those who qualified outside Australia were then analyzed for demographic variables such as age, gender, country of origin, and years of graduation and immigration. Their practice locations were matched to the Australian Bureau of Statistics geographical framework, and their specialties compared with those of a random sample of graduates from Australian medical schools.

Results: Over the approximately 60 years since those surveyed arrived in Australia, IMGs' countries/regions of origin have changed from mainly the UK and Ireland to Southern Asia, in line with demographic changes in Australia as a whole. Most arrived soon after graduation, and IMGs are twice IMGs as likely as local graduates to be working in a rural area of workforce shortage. Compared with local graduates, significantly more IMGs are working in general practice.

Conclusions: IMGs currently practicing in Australia make up a substantial proportion of the workforce and are more likely than local graduates to provide health services in regional and remote areas.

Keywords: AHPRA, Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency; AMC, australian medical council; Health system; IMG, international medical graduates; Integration; MBA, Medical Board of Australia; MDA, medical directory of australia; Medical migration; Medical specialization; Source countries.

Fig. 1

Percent of each gender, currently practicing in 2020, by years since medical graduation. The low number in the 0–10 years interval is partly artefactual due to those who recently arrived and are still under supervision being under-represented in the MDA database. Medians: female 25 (18–33) y; male 28 (20–36 y); p<0.001 (Mann-Whitney test).

Fig. 2

UN geographic regions of origin of the IMGs practicing in 2020 versus year of registration. UK and Ireland are in the Northern Europe region, but plotted here by themselves because of the favoured registration status they have enjoyed from the Australian Medical Council and historical medical boards. See legend to Fig. 1 for explanation of the smaller totals in 2011–20. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

Fig. 3

Geographic place of practice of IMGs and local graduates in Australia in 2020, by Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) geographical regions. ‘Outer’ is sum of ‘outer regional’ plus ‘remote’ plus ‘very remote’ areas. IMGs vs Australian graduates, p<0.001 (chi square).

Fig. 4

Geographic place of practice of IMGs in Australia in 2020, by ABS geographical regions and time since first registered in Australia. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)