WHO Report: Women Run 77% of Europe's Health Workforce, Earn 19% Less Per Hour Than Men

Women make up 77% of the health and care workforce across the World Health Organization's European Region but earn 19% less per hour than men, according to a WHO/Europe report covering 43 countries published Friday, September 18.

The monthly gap is worse: 28%. Women hold barely more than half of the sector's top-paying jobs, 55%, despite dominating the workforce that fills the rest.

"Women make up the majority of the people who keep Europe's health systems running, yet they're paid less than their male counterparts, a gap that compounds over a lifelong career," said Dr. Natasha Azzopardi Muscat, Director of the Division for Health Systems at WHO/Europe.

The Gap Widens at the Top

The raw numbers hide a sharper pattern. Among the lowest earners, women make about 2% less per hour than men. Among the highest earners, that gap balloons to nearly 23%, according to WHO's own report.

Managerial roles in health and care employ more women than management jobs in other industries, yet pay less for it: €22.00 an hour on average, versus €24.70 for comparable management roles elsewhere, WHO found.

What Explains It, and What Doesn't

WHO adjusted the raw gap for four measurable factors: age, education, full-time versus part-time status, and public versus private sector employment. That adjustment cuts the hourly gap from 19% down to 6%, and the monthly gap from 28% down to 10%.

The adjustment illustrates a point critics of pay-gap studies have raised for years: unadjusted, headline-grabbing gaps often lump together different jobs, different hours, and different career stages, which overstates how much of the gap is actually pay discrimination for identical work. WHO's own data shows most of the raw 19% figure is explained by exactly those kinds of structural differences, not a flat case of paying women less for the same job.

Roughly 6 to 10 percentage points remain unexplained by any factor WHO measured. That residual is concentrated almost entirely at the top of the pay scale, where it accounts for nearly the whole gap among the highest earners. Azzopardi Muscat said the remainder "comes down to how the sector values women's work," pointing to occupational segregation and the historic undervaluing of care roles rather than qualifications. The report did not adjust for narrower factors like medical specialty, negotiated pay, overtime or hazard premiums, which could still account for some of that unexplained slice.

Globally, WHO says the health sector's gender pay gap runs even wider than in Europe, at 24%, according to Euronews' coverage of the report.

A Separate Warning: The Workforce Is Aging Out

On the same day, WHO issued a second warning with a different focus: the world is heading toward a shortfall of 11.1 million health workers by 2030, according to Reuters. A quarter of doctors globally are set to retire within the next decade.

"In many countries both our populations and health workers are ageing at the same time. This can intensify the projected global shortage," WHO said in the statement accompanying the report, which drew on data from more than 100 countries.

By 2030, 67 countries are projected to lack enough staff to maintain their current standard of medical care, WHO said. An additional 832,000 workers are needed just to hold current staffing ratios steady, a gap WHO warns could push poorer countries to lean more heavily on foreign-trained health workers, potentially straining care standards there.

Higher-income countries, including much of Europe, are expected to be hit hardest, with one in three doctors retiring in the next ten years, according to Reuters' reporting on the WHO data.

Meanwhile, in the US: Fatigue and Dismissed Symptoms

Two US surveys released around the same time point to related but distinct problems.

The CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, drawing on its 2024 National Health Interview Survey of roughly 27,000 adults, found 71.5% of US adults reported fatigue over a three-month period, with 16.6% reporting frequent exhaustion, according to Fox News. Frequent fatigue hit women at nearly double the rate of men, 20% versus 13%. Younger adults age 18 to 34 reported the highest rates, at 19.5%.

A Gallup survey conducted with the nonprofit Pivotal, released the same week and covering 5,200 US adults, found 51% of women reported a negative healthcare experience in the past five years, such as feeling dismissed or getting conflicting advice, compared with 39% of men, according to CNN. One-third of women said a provider minimized or dismissed their pain or symptoms outright.

"We have a history of gender bias and not believing women," Dr. Kimi Chernoby, an ER physician and chief legal officer of the FemInEM Foundation, told CNN. Stephanie Marken, a Gallup senior partner who worked on the survey, said for many women just getting an appointment is "really half the battle."

The four reports describe overlapping strain on the health industry from different angles: who does the work, who gets paid for it, who's about to retire, and who feels heard when they show up as patients.

WHO released the pay-gap report as a data release, not a regulatory action. Whether individual European governments or the EU pursue pay-equity mandates in health care in response remains an open question.