skip to main content

Datapoint

Retired psychologists: Do they really stop working?

News from APA's Center for Workforce Studies

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

March 2017, Vol 48, No. 3

Print version: page 15

1 min read

APA Style leaf logo Cite This Article in APA Style
Lin, L., Stamm, K., & Christidis, P. (2017, March 1). Datapoint: Retired psychologists: Do they really stop working? Monitor on Psychology, 48(3). https://www.apa.org/monitor/2017/03/datapoint

In 2013, about 24 percent of all U.S. psychologists (those whose highest degree was a doctorate or professional degree in psychology) had previously retired—that's approximately 53,000 retirees.1

  • But 42 percent of them were still working, and 1 percent were looking for work. Fifty-seven percent were retired and not working. (Figure 1)
  • Of those psychologists who were working after having retired, 80 percent were working in a psychology-related field, and 45 percent were working 35 hours or more per week. Psychologists worked fewer hours as they became older. (Figure 2)
  • Of those psychologists who were retired and not working, the median age at full retirement was 61. Women tended to retire at earlier ages than men. (Figure 3)
Retired psychologists: Do they really stop working?

For more information, contact cws@apa.org.

1National 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/opens in new window. Examples of retirement include mandatory retirement, early retirement or voluntary retirement. Respondents over age 75 were not included in this survey. The use of NSF data does not imply NSF endorsement of the research, research methods or conclusions contained in this report.

Letters to the Editor