Half of doctors practicing in France are now women

Half of the doctors practicing in France are now women, according to data from the Directorate for Research, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics (DREES) on the demographics of practitioners published this Monday, July 28 .

As of January 1, 2025, out of the 237,214 practicing physicians (including 100,000 general practitioners), the number of women (118,957) exceeded their male counterparts (118,257) for the first time, according to these results. At the beginning of 2024, the Drees had counted 117,781 male physicians and 115,635 female physicians.

The profession remains essentially female (97%) among midwives but also among chiropodists, while it "continues to rejuvenate and become more feminine" among dental surgeons, underlines the Drees.

At the beginning of 2025, this institution recorded 47,600 dental surgeons, 25,800 midwives and 14,400 chiropodists-podiatrists in practice.

The number of general practitioners is expected to increase again in 2025 (+1% compared to 2024) and excluding general medicine, the increase is 2.1%.

Since January 1, 2012, the number of doctors has increased by 9.9%, driven both by "a growing number of doctors who graduated abroad" and by "the entry into practice" of generations who benefited from the marked increase in the numerus clausus between 2000 and 2020, underlines the Drees.

Doctors mostly work in private practice, but increasingly this is combined with salaried work.