Objective:

to estimate the gap between the supply and demand of nurses in Spain for 2020, 2030, 2040 and 2050.

Methods:

we used the last population projections for total population and two age groups (ages 15 to 64, and older than 64) by Eurostat. Nurses supply and demand was estimated by extrapolating the 2016 nurses/population ratios for 2020, 2030, 2040 and 2050.

Results:

we have estimated a gap of nurses of +21.024 (2020), +4.724 (2030), -23.155 (2040) and -39.510 (2050).

Conclusions:

These figures suggets that there may be a shortage of nurses in Spain from 2030. However, despite there are currently enough professionals, sometimes there is a shortage of nurses in certain areas in Spain.