As a member of the academic psychology workforce, do you ever wonder how many psychology graduates become faculty? How soon they become tenured? Are tenured/tenure-track positions disappearing? How many faculty are in academic leadership positions? How are women and minorities represented among faculty?
APA Center for Workforce Studies can answer these questions with its new report on the academic psychology workforce.
The report uses data from the National Science Foundation's Survey of Doctorate Recipientsopens in new window to analyze the educational, employment and demographic characteristics of the academic segment of the psychology workforce. Being the first of its kind, this report provides answers to many questions that haven't been answered before, such as…
How large is the academic psychology workforce?
One out of six psychology doctorate degree holders in the workforce is in a faculty position (assistant, associate or full professor). That's about 29,300 faculty, or 17% of the psychology doctoral workforce.
- Not all faculty are tenured — about 76% are in tenured/tenure-track positions and 24% are in nontenured positions.
- Not all faculty are postsecondary teachers — while the majority (79%) are postsecondary teachers, 21% of faculty reported occupations such as psychologists, medical scientists, biological scientists, counselors, diagnosing/treating practitioners, and medical and health service managers.
- Of those faculty who are postsecondary teachers, not all teach psychology — while the majority (69%) are psychology teachers, 31% reported other fields such as education, other social sciences, and health and related sciences.
Are tenured/tenure-track positions disappearing?
Yes and no.
If you look at the sheer number of tenured/tenure-track positions, there was an increase of 39 percent between 1995 and 2015. However, during the same period, the number of nontenured positions almost doubled (an increase of 179 percent).
As a result, the proportion of tenured/tenure-track positions shrank from 86 to 76%, while the proportion of non-tenured positions increased from 14 to 24%.
Most tenured faculty (59%) were tenured 4-9 years after they earned their doctorates.
Faculty in tenured/tenure-track positions are more likely to be primarily engaged in research and teaching activities, whereas those in nontenured positions are more likely to be primarily engaged in management and professional service activities.
How many faculty are in leadership positions?
About 4,600 or 16% of faculty with psychology doctorates are in leadership positions — about 400 as president, provost or chancellor and 4,200 as dean, department head or department chair.
The number of faculty in leadership positions increased by 61% between 2003 and 2015.
Faculty in leadership positions are more likely to be primarily engaged in management activities compared to all faculty. The percentage of academic leadership positions is highest in 4-year colleges (18%).
How well are women and minorities represented among faculty?
Women represented 53% of faculty in 2015, a substantial increase from 37% in 1995. Women's representation among tenured faculty was smaller (49%). However, there was a higher representation of women in academic leadership (56%).
Racial/ethnic minorities represented 22% of faculty (10% Asian, 5% Black/African American, 5% Hispanics and 2% other racial/ethnic groups). Between 1995 and 2015, racial/ethnic minority representation among faculty increased from 8 to 22%.
Minorities' representation was smaller among tenured faculty (20%) but larger among academic leadership (24%). The academic psychology workforce is more diverse when compared to the entire psychology workforce, among which racial/ethnic minorities represented 14%.
It can be anticipated that faculty will continue to be a significant component of the workforce. Of the 3,837 individuals receiving a psychology research doctorate in 2018, 65% had definite postgraduate employment commitments and 43% of them had commitments in academic employment (2018 Survey of Earned Doctorates (PDF, 158KB)opens in new window). Academic jobs represented a large proportion of openings in the psychology job market as well. Of all the job ads posted to PsycCareersopens in new window during the period of 2015-17, 37% were seeking psychology faculty. In 2017, nearly 2,000 psychology academic job ads were posted on the Psychology Job Wiki platform.
Interested to learn more about the academic psychology workforce? Read the full report (PDF, 2.16MB)opens in new window. For more information, please contact the Center for Workforce Studies or visit the APA Center for Workforce Studies website.
About the author
Luona Lin works at the American Psychological Association’s Center for Workforce Studies. Her work has focused on analyzing the psychology workforce and education pipeline. She received a master’s degree in public policy from the George Washington University with a concentration in program evaluation. Prior to that, she received a dual bachelor’s degree in urban studies and economics from Peking University.
