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Density of medical doctors (per 10,000 population), 2015-2023: 44.08
Density of nursing and midwifery personnel (per 10,000 population), 2016-2023: 116.65
Density of dentists (per 10,000 population), 2016-2023: 7.74
Density of pharmacists (per 10,000 population), 2015-2023: 7.83

Source: World health statistics 2025: monitoring health for the SDGs, Sustainable Development Goals. Tables of health statistics by country and area, WHO region and globally. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2025. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.

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Practicing doctors per 1,000 population, 2021: 4.3
Share of different categories of doctors, 2021
– General practitioners: 14.1%
– Specialists: 51.2%
– Other doctors: 34.7%
Share of foreign-trained doctors, 2021: 30.2%
Medical graduates per 100,000 population, 2021: 14.2
Practicing nurses per 1,000 population, 2021: 10.7
Share of foreign-trained nurses, 2021: 3.5%
Nursing graduates per 100,000 population, 2021: 44.1
Ratio of nurses to doctors, 2021: 2.5
Practicing pharmacists per 100,000 population, 2021: 77
Community pharmacies per 100,000 population, 2021: 14
Remuneration of doctors, ratio to average wage, 2021
– General Practitioners
– Salaried: 2.3
– Specialists
– Salaried: 2.2
Remuneration of hospital nurses, ratio to average wage, 2021: 1.0
Remuneration of hospital nurses, USD PPP, 2021: $48,000
Long-term care workers per 100 people aged 65 and over, 2021: 11.7
Share of informal carers among the population aged 50 and over, 2019
– Daily carers: 4
– Weekly carers: 10
Share of long-term care workers who work part time or on fixed contracts, 2021
– Part-time: 50.3%
– Fixed-term contract: 26.8%
Average hourly wages of personal care workers, as a share of economy-wide average wage, 2018
– Residential (facility-based) care: 80%
– Home-based care: 78%

Source: OECD (2023), Health at a Glance 2023: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing, Paris, doi.org/10.1787/7a7afb35-en.

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“Sweden has a higher number of both physicians and nurses per population than the EU averages, at 4.3 doctors per 1 000 population in 2018 (the EU average is 3.9) and 10.9 nurses per 1 000 population (the EU average is 8.4) (Figure 10). However, general practitioners (GPs) account for only one in seven physicians, so the density of GPs in Sweden (0.6 per 1,000 population) is one third lower than the EU average (almost 1 per 1,000 population). Nurses have taken on an expanded role in primary care, with the ability to prescribe medicines and coordinate care.”

Source: OECD/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (2021), Sweden: Country Health Profile 2021, State of Health in the EU, OECD Publishing, Paris/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, Brussels.

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World Health Systems Facts is a project of the Real Reporting Foundation. We provide reliable statistics and other data from authoritative sources regarding health systems and policies in the US and sixteen other nations.

Page last updated June 19, 2025 by Doug McVay, Editor.