Good news for psychologists: Job prospects are strong, and an ever-growing number of Americans are being exposed to the discipline at all levels of education.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), employment for psychologists overall will grow by 19% between 2014 and 2024, much faster than the 7% average growth predicted for all occupations. In contrast, employment of psychiatrists is predicted to grow by just 15% and social workers by only 12%.
Jobs for clinical, counseling and school psychologists are expected to grow even faster than employment for psychologists overall, with an expected 20% increase, spurred by the need for services for older people with aging concerns, veterans with war-related trauma and people with autism, the BLS says.
In non-health service subfields, employment of industrial/organizational (I/O) psychologists is expected to grow by 19%. However, I/O psychologists can expect stiff competition, BLS warns, noting the mismatch between the large number of qualified applicants and the 400 or so new jobs expected in the field.
Overall, the unemployment rate for psychologists is low. According to the latest data from the National Science Foundation (NSF), in 2013, the unemployment rate for psychology research doctorates was 1.6%, lower than the 2.1% for research doctorate recipients in all science and engineering fields and 1.9% for research doctorate recipients in social science fields.
"A psychology doctorate is extremely marketable because you develop valuable and transferrable skills, such as writing, communicating, investigating and understanding behavior, which will serve you well in many different employment settings," says Peggy Christidis, PhD, senior research officer at APA's Center for Workforce Studies (CWS).
More students study psychology
Psychology's educational pipeline is strong, too. The number of high school students taking the Advanced Placement psychology test, for example, has jumped from just 3,916 when the exam was introduced in 1992 to 303,000 this year. And that doesn't include an unknown number of students—perhaps 50,000—taking the course but not the exam, says David Myers, PhD, author of a leading introductory psychology textbook and a professor at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. It also doesn't include students taking other psychology courses. According to U.S. Department of Education data, almost 30% of high school graduates in 2009—nearly a million students—had earned psychology credit.
Psychology's popularity continues in college. Between 1.2 million and 1.6 million undergraduates take introductory psychology classes each year, according to estimates (American Psychologistopens in new window, Vol. 71, No. 2, 2016).
Many of those students go on to become psychology majors. The share of college students majoring in psychology has hovered around 6 to 6.5% since the early 1990s, up from about 4 to 5% in the 1980s. That makes psychology the No. 1 major among specific fields within science and engineering—more popular than biological sciences, physics and astronomy, mathematics, electrical engineering, computer science, information sciences, the other social sciences and many other majors, according to NSF. Psychology is the fourth most popular individual major overall, behind business, health professions and related programs, social sciences and history, according to the U.S. Department of Education. In the 2014–15 academic year, schools awarded more than 117,000 bachelor's degrees in psychology.
Meanwhile, graduate-level psychology education is surging. Between 2004 and 2013, the number of master's degrees awarded jumped by 54% and doctorates by 32%, according to a CWS analysis of U.S. Department of Education data. In 2013, 58% of psychology master's degrees and 56% of doctorates were in health service provision subfields—clinical, counseling and school psychology. Doctorates in health service provision subfields are outpacing research subfields, growing by 34% versus 29% over the last decade.
A healthier society?
All that education is paying off in a public that's more open to psychology. And that knowledge may have tangible benefits, says William T. Riley, PhD, who directs the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research at the National Institutes of Health.
Even a psychology class or two, he says, can give students the tools they need to make healthy behavior changes. "A few classes that train students to challenge and test their assumptions about their behavior and the behavior of others can provide the scientific grounding to be good consumers of health research and to be more effective at self-improvement, including changes in behavior that improve health," says Riley, noting that social and behavioral factors account for more than half of the burden of disease.
Certainly, more Americans are asking for help with mental health problems. According to data from the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the number of Americans seeking mental health services increased from 13% of adults in 2004 to 15% in 2014.
At the same time, psychological science is leading to interventions that are enhancing people's lives in a wide variety of areas, whether it's boosting educational performance, reducing distracted driving, improving work life or designing products and services to be more user friendly. All the while, a strong psychology education pipeline is creating the next generation of psychologists to continue that work and a population primed to understand it.
"The millions of students who have taken Advanced Placement psychology, in addition to the millions more taking intro to psychology at colleges and universities, represent our chance to contribute to human understanding and to a just and sustainable human future," Myers says.
