Global: Healthcare worker attitudes towards finances, lifestyle, and more

Data from YouGov Profiles allows us to delve into the attitudes, preferences, and beliefs of workers across a range of industries. In this piece, we look at healthcare workers in either full or part time employment in five very different markets: Great Britain, the US, France, Singapore, and the UAE. These countries have a mixture of public, private, and combined healthcare systems – but our research shows that, in many cases, healthcare workers have similar feelings and attitudes.

For example, in every market we’ve included, most healthcare workers agree that they wish they didn’t have to go to work every day. In Britain (76% vs. 73%), the US (71% vs. 66%), France (67% vs. 63%), and especially Singapore (69% vs. 61%), people working in the medical profession are more likely to say this than workers in general. A majority in every market but the UAE (47%) also say that money is the only reason they go to work – with British healthcare workers most likely to be motivated by cash (although in this case, they’re broadly in line with the working public – 64% of whom say the same). It may therefore be worth it for healthcare providers and medical companies to seek ways of incentivising employees beyond their financial compensation.

In terms of wellbeing, a majority of British, US, and Singaporean healthcare workers say they “worry a lot”. In Britain, people in the medical industry are five percentage points more likely to worry than the general working public (67% vs. 62%) – and 7% in Singapore (54% vs. 47%). In the US and France, the proportions are equal (56% vs. 56%) and the same goes for France (47% vs. 47%). Healthcare workers in the UAE are an outlier in that they are less likely to say they’re frequently anxious than the working public (44% vs. 47%).

Looking towards the future, healthcare workers are broadly optimistic about their job prospects in all markets – with those in the US (67%) and UAE (62%) most likely to be broadly happy about their professional futures, with Singaporean (44%) and French (52%) workers less likely to share this positivity.

On another note, despite working in traditional healthcare, a majority of healthcare workers in every market but Singapore (45%) say they’re “open-minded” about homeopathy and alternative medicine, with Americans (63%) most likely to agree. Given that homeopathy is rejected by the NHS, the American Medical Association, and a host of other bodies on the basis that there is no good-quality evidence for its efficacy, this makes an interesting point of view

British (55% vs. 51%), American (63% vs. 59%), French (66% vs. 60%), Singaporean (45% vs. 42%), and UAE (57% vs. 54%) healthcare workers are all more likely to be open-minded about homeopathy than the working public in general.

The data is based on the interviews of adults aged 18 and over in 18 markets with sample sizes varying between and for each market. All interviews were conducted online in 2022. Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from Mexico and India, which use urban representative samples, and Indonesia and Hong Kong, which use online representative samples.