[The demographic future of the pharmacy profession (1990-2020)]

Training of pharmacists in France is regulated by a numerous clausus system. However, forecasting the number of active pharmacists in the future is not an easy task for various reasons: (i) after graduation, certain pharmacists do not become occupationally active; (ii) there are many types of pharmaceutical occupations, a pharmacist may leave an occupation for an other or enter an occupation long time after graduation; (iii) for the time being, the dynamics governing retirement, mortality and other occupation leaving processes have not been observed and analyzed. Based on certain sets of reasonable assumptions, the Centre de Sociologie et de Démographie Médicales has attempted to design scenarios for future development of French pharmaceutical manpower. If the student annual intake is kept at its current level (2,250), the number of active pharmacists registered with the Ordre des Pharmaciens would rose to 60,400-63,000 in the year 2000, and to 65,400-71,300 in the year 2010, from less than 53,000 in 1990. If the numerous clausus is immediately reduced to 1,500 (i.e. a cut of one third from the current level), the number of registered pharmacists would be 57,000-58,300 in 2000 and 57,500-61,000 ten years later. All these calculations are carried out with techniques of demographic projection. It remains to know what set of figures would be the most suitable to the future need of the nation regarding pharmaceutical manpower.