Inequality of obstetric and gynaecological workforce distribution in China

BACKGROUND: Women’s health is defined as a continuum throughout their whole lives. In China, women receive life-round preventative and curative health care from the health system, although the universal access to reproductive health has already been basically achieved in China, the situation of women’s access to curative health care is still unknown. METHODS: Data from the national maternal and child health human resource investigation were analysed. Lorenz curves, Gini coefficients, and Theil L indexes were drawn and calculated to reflect the inequality. Demographically, we found that the Obstetric and gynaecological (OB/GYN) workforce was the least equitable regarding the distribution of live births. RESULTS: Demographically, we found that the OB/GYN workforce was the least equitable regarding the distribution of live births. The geographic distribution of the OB/GYN workforce was found to be severely inequitable, especially in the West region. Most of the inequality was found to come from inner-regions. CONCLUSION: For the first time, the distribution inequality of OB/GYN workforce in China was analysed. The findings in this study can be adopted in making national or regional OB/GYN workforce allocation policies, but further studies are still needed to reveal the detailed sources of inequality and to provide evidence for local policy-making. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12939-017-0716-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.