In 2019, there were 17,565 professional practitioners licensed to practise as a "speech therapist" in Belgium. Of these, 65% were working in the healthcare sector (11,494 speech therapists), 11% outside the healthcare sector, 18% not working within Belgium and 5% were retired. Of these speech therapists working in health care, 58% worked in the Flemish Community and 42% in the French Community.
The profession was quite young and female, as 46% of speech-language pathologists working in the healthcare sector were under 35 years of age and 98% of them women.
DISTRIBUTION OF SPEECH THERAPISTS BY ACTIVITY STATUS AND COMMUNITY, 2019
DISTRIBUTION OF SPEECH THERAPISTS IN HEALTH CARE BY AGE, 2019
Most speech therapists had an exclusively salaried professional status and mainly worked in teaching.
OCCUPATIONAL STATUS AND SALARIED SECTOR OF ACTIVITY FOR SPEECH THERAPISTS WORKING IN HEALTH CARE IN 2019[1]
FLEMISH COMMUNITY
FRENCH COMMUNITY
NUMBER OF SPEECH THERAPISTS WORKING IN HEALTH CARE PER 10,000 INHABITANTS BY ACTIVITY DISTRICT (31/12/2019)
The density of speech therapists working in health care per 10,000 inhabitants in Belgium differed between the districts, with, for example, a low density in Tongeren and a high density in Ghent, and was more pronounced in the Brussels-Capital Region than in the other Regions (9.60 in the Flemish Region; 9.76 in the Walloon Region; 12.71 in the Brussels-Capital Region).
EVOLUTION OF THE NUMBER OF SPEECH THERAPISTS IN HEALTH CARE AS INDIVIDUALS AND FULL-TIME EQUIVALENTS FROM 2013 TO 2019
On average, based on the change between 2013 and 2019, the number of active speech therapists in health care increased by just over 450 individuals per year.
[1]The sectors of employment are known for speech therapists with an employed status but not for the self-employed speech therapists.