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Datapoint

What drives psychologists to work part time?

News from APA's Center for Workforce Studies

January 2017, Vol 48, No. 1

Print version: page 15

1 min read

APA Style leaf logo Cite This Article in APA Style
Lin, L., Christidis, P., & Stamm, K. (2017, January 1). Datapoint: What drives psychologists to work part time? Monitor on Psychology, 48(1). https://www.apa.org/monitor/2017/01/datapoint

One-third of employed psychologists—those whose highest degree is a doctoral or professional degree in psychology—worked part-time at their principle jobs in 2013.1,2

  • The top reason they reported working part time was that they "did not need or want to work more hours" (54 percent), followed by "family responsibilities" (35 percent) and "full-time job not available" (34 percent).
  • Women were more likely to work part time due to family responsibilities than men (39 percent versus 18 percent).
  • Men were more likely than women to work part time due to previous retirement or semi-retirement (42 percent versus 15 percent)

What drives psychologists to work part time?  

By Luona Lin, MPP, Peggy Christidis, PhD, and Karen Stamm, PhD

For more information, contact cws@apa.org.

1 National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. (2013). National Survey of College Graduates Public Use Microdata File and Codebook. Retrieved from https://sestat.nsf.gov/datadownload/. The use of NSF data does not imply NSF endorsement of the research, research methods or conclusions contained in this report.

2 Working part time refers to working less than 35 hours per week in the principal job (job spent the most hours) in a typical week.

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