Yes, psychology is one of the most female-dominated fields in the United States, and the gap has been widening for decades. Women make up roughly 65 to 68 percent of the active psychology workforce, and at the educational level the numbers are even more lopsided: nearly 79 percent of bachelor’s degrees in psychology go to women. The trend shows no signs of reversing.
How the Numbers Break Down
As of 2016, about 65 percent of active psychologists in the U.S. were women, a figure that had climbed from 57 percent just nine years earlier. Data from the American Psychological Association puts the number even higher for 2013, at 68.3 percent, meaning there were roughly 2.1 female psychologists for every male psychologist in the workforce that year. The exact figure depends on how “active psychologist” is counted, but every major dataset tells the same story.
The pipeline into the field is even more skewed. In the 2017-18 academic year, women earned 78.9 percent of bachelor’s degrees in psychology. At the doctoral level, nearly 72 percent of new PhDs and PsyDs entering the field were women as far back as 2005, and the share has only grown since. In some subfields, the ratio is extreme: in developmental and child psychology, female PhD recipients outnumber men by more than five to one.
How Psychology Got Here
This wasn’t always the case. In 1970, women made up just over 20 percent of psychology PhD recipients. The shift happened gradually through the 1980s and 1990s as women entered higher education in greater numbers across all disciplines. But psychology’s gender gap became especially pronounced compared to other fields. By 2005, graduate enrollment in psychology, including master’s-level programs, had reached roughly three-quarters female.
Several factors accelerated the trend. Stagnant salaries in psychology may have steered men toward higher-paying fields. One APA analysis suggested that men, often still influenced by traditional breadwinner expectations, looked at entry-level psychology salaries and chose other careers. The broader pattern of women outnumbering men in higher education, which hit a milestone in 2009 when women earned more doctoral degrees than men for the first time across all disciplines, amplified the shift in psychology specifically.
The Leadership Gap
Despite women’s dominance in the field overall, a persistent gap exists at the top. Women with psychology PhDs are less likely to enter tenure-track academic positions, remain underrepresented at the rank of full professor, and held only about 40 percent of psychology department chair positions as of 2013. That means women can represent nearly 80 percent of graduates and two-thirds of the workforce while still being a minority in the rooms where hiring, funding, and curriculum decisions get made.
This pattern mirrors what happens in other female-dominated professions like nursing and education, where men who do enter the field often advance into leadership roles at disproportionate rates.
Racial Diversity Within the Female Majority
The psychology workforce is heavily female, but it is not particularly diverse along racial and ethnic lines. In 2016, 84 percent of active psychologists were White. Just 5 percent were Hispanic, 4 percent were Black or African American, 4 percent were Asian, and 2 percent identified with other racial or ethnic groups. That’s a significant mismatch with the U.S. population.
There are signs of slow change. Younger psychologists are substantially more diverse: racial and ethnic minorities accounted for 20 to 24 percent of psychologists aged 50 and younger, compared to less than 15 percent among those over 55. The average age of minority psychologists (44.7 years) was notably younger than the average for White psychologists (51.0 years), suggesting the incoming generation will gradually shift the field’s overall composition. The same generational pattern holds for gender. Women in the workforce averaged 47.6 years old compared to 54.4 for men, reflecting the wave of younger women entering the profession.
What This Means in Practice
For anyone considering a psychology career, the gender composition shapes the professional culture, mentorship networks, and even salary structures you’ll encounter. Psychology’s relatively modest starting salaries, historically around $61,000 for new doctorate holders, are partly a consequence of being a field where compensation hasn’t kept pace with the length and cost of training required.
For people seeking therapy or psychological services, the practical effect is straightforward: your therapist is statistically likely to be a woman. If you have a strong preference for a male therapist, the smaller pool may mean longer wait times or fewer options, particularly in subfields like child and developmental psychology where men are especially scarce. This can matter, since some clients feel more comfortable discussing certain issues with a therapist of a specific gender, and the shrinking supply of male clinicians makes matching harder in some communities.
The overall trajectory is clear. Psychology crossed the tipping point into female-dominated territory decades ago, and each new graduating class pushes the ratio further. The field is not simply majority-female; it is one of the most gender-imbalanced professions in the country, rivaling nursing and social work.