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Sweden: Healthcare Workers

Sweden: Healthcare Workers - Doctors, Nurses, Long-Term Care Workers, Medical Personnel - National Policies - World Health Systems Facts

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Healthcare Workers
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Density of medical doctors (per 10,000 population), 2017-2024: 44.74
Density of nursing and midwifery personnel (per 10,000 population), 2017-2024: 117.41
Density of dentists (per 10,000 population), 2017-2024: 7.79
Density of pharmacists (per 10 000 population), 2016-2024: 8.02

Source: World health statistics 2026: Monitoring health for the SDGs, Sustainable Development Goals. Tables of health statistics by country and area, WHO region and globally (last accessed May 13, 2026). Geneva: World Health Organization; 2026. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.


Practicing doctors per 1,000 population
– 2022: 4.47
– 2013: 4.04
Share of different categories of doctors (%), 2022
– General practitioners: 14.07%
– Specialists: 51.49%
– Other doctors (Includes non-specialist doctors working in hospitals and recent medical graduates who have not started specialty training): 34.44%
Remuneration of general practitioners (Ratio to average wage), 2023
– Salaried: 2.28
Remuneration of general practitioners (USD PPP), 2023
– Salaried: $128,130
Remuneration of specialists (Ratio to average wage), 2023
– Salaried: 2.2
Remuneration of specialists (USD PPP), 2023
– Salaried: $123,397
Practicing nurses per 1,000 population
– 2021-2022: 10.97
– 2013: 10.97
Ratio of nurses per doctor, 2022: 2.45
Remuneration of hospital nurses (Ratio to average wage), 2023: 1.0
Remuneration of hospital nurses (USD PPP), 2023: $56,339.43
Practising pharmacists per 100,000 population
– 2022: 80.0
– 2013: 76.0
Long-term care workers per 100 people aged 65 and over
– 2023: 12.00
– 2013: 12.30

Source: OECD (2025), Health at a Glance 2025: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing, Paris, doi.org/10.1787/8f9e3f98-en.


“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.


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 eighteen other nations.

Page last updated September 21, 2026 by Doug McVay, Editor.

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