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European Union of Private Hospitals

Women move towards equity also in health care management positions

In Spain, 76% of people working in the health sector are women, according to INE data. These data continue to reflect the growing trend towards the feminisation of the healthcare profession. This feminisation has been observed for several years and, moreover, at a global level, where women make up 70% of the workforce in the sector.

Likewise, and according to the latest data collected by ASPE, the female presence in the field of medical specialisation is experiencing notable growth in Spain: 37% of specialists in Medicine are already women and the proportion between men and women is expected to equalise in the coming years, given that female doctors in the 30-39 age range outnumber men by 19%. This feminisation is observed above all in the specialties of Gynaecology and Obstetrics and Family and Community Medicine and Emergency Medicine, and is less evident in Orthopaedic Surgery and Traumatology, where only 15% of specialists are women.

On the other hand, women are also in the majority in middle management, with more than 60%. Moreover, this sector stands out for having a considerable percentage of women in vice-presidential positions (46.8%) and senior management roles (39.8%), although it is true that the predominance of women does not remain constant, as it decreases as one moves up the hierarchical structure. This reality is even more striking at the global level, where – according to data from Women in Global Health – women occupy only 25% of senior positions.

“Women’s leadership in healthcare is undeniable,” says Carlos Rus, president of ASPE. “The challenge now lies in increasing women’s access to management or presidency positions in healthcare, which currently stands at around 40% in Spain. In this sense, the implementation of policies to reconcile family and professional life will be a key aspect to achieve definitive equality,” he adds.

In fact, the proposal of measures that favour work-life balance is for ASPE a crucial aspect, which it works on in its Human Resources Committee, chaired by Olga Ginés, Managing Director of Beata María Ana Hospital, who stresses the need to work on policies that reinforce the attraction and retention of talent, even more so in the context of a shortage of professionals. “In healthcare, recognising and promoting work-life balance is essential to make full use of female talent, an approach that not only strengthens the workforce, but also contributes to more comprehensive and sensitive healthcare,” Ginés points out. “It is the job of managers to lead the important challenge of achieving equality for the benefit of society, offering equal opportunities for men and women, through strategies based on principles of integration, sustainability and social responsibility,” she stresses.

Work-life balance in the healthcare sector is an imperative to promote the well-being of healthcare professionals, who in recent years have also been subjected to high levels of stress and burnout, especially women, among whom there is a greater degree of vulnerability to burnout syndrome as they generally have to face additional challenges in their work and personal activity.

According to the latest EPA data, corresponding to the last quarter of 2023, women represent a very high percentage of the labour market in the health sector: 10% of employed women work in the health sector, compared to 3.4% of men.

Article published on ASPE website