Migration of Nurses and Doctors in the EU and the European Free Trade Association

Abstract

Health workers have been mobile for many decades. In the past, doctors from countries like Canada, Australia and New Zealand travelled to France, the US or the UK to acquire a specialty not available at home or which was more developed in the country of destination. From the 1950s on, doctors from newly independent countries started doing the same; some stayed and then others came, attracted by better working conditions or pushed by an insecure environment at home. The first ones to emigrate in significant numbers were from the Indian sub-continent, soon followed in the 1960s by others from Africa, both South and North of the Sahara and from the Caribbean. The direction of migratory flows was basically determined by language and historical links, and the vast majority of migrants were men, as medicine was little feminized at the time.