1.- Introduction
2.- Socio-demographic Situation
3.- Socio-economic Situation
4. Working conditions
5.- Final Remarks
1.- Introduction
2.- Socio-demographic Situation
3.- Socio-economic Situation
4. Working conditions
5.- Final Remarks
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1.- Introduction
The data here presented are the results of a survey carried out among a wide sample of psychologists members of C.O.P. (Professional Association of Spanish Psychologists). The investigation, which has been subventioned by this organization, took place in 1990 and it is part of a wider project, called " Identity and Image of the Psychologists in Spain: a Study under the perspective of the Social Marketing". What we present here is the first part of the project. The second one will study the Image of psychologists in Spain, and the third part will consist of a promotion and diffusion campaign of the services psychologists can offer the Spanish society.
The investigation consisted of the elaboration and administration of a wide questionnaire where psychologists were asked about academical, personal, demographic, social and economic aspects. The second part of the questionnaire included a long list of tasks and activities related to the professional exercise of psychologists so that they could marked their professional area.
In March and April 1990 the questionnaire has been given to a sample of 606 professionals, members of C.O.P., from all Spain (excluding Cataluña that has an independent professional association). The random sample was stratified and proportional to the number of associates each delegation has. The confidence level was established at 95.5 % and the margin of error was fixed at + 4.
It is convenient to insist on the fact that the information presented here has been obtained from the Professional Association - Defined Universe - and not from all the graduates in Psychology.
First of all, we would like to make a short socio-demographic description of Spanish psychologists. In a second stage, we will analyse the social situation and the working conditions of this professional group establishing comparisons between the different fields within the Psychology. Finally, we present some conclusions with a characterization of the discipline and of its most common specialties in Spain.
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2.- Socio-demographic Situation
Psychologists in Spain are very young. As Table 1 clearly shows, only 15.4% of psychologists are over 40 years old and 3.4% are older than 50 years old. On the contratry, 30 % are younger than 30 years old.
Nevertheless, and despite the youth of this professional group, there has been an evolution in the last ten years towards an aged professional group. As we can observe in TABLE 2, in 1981 - this is the year when we have obtained the first data about the ages of the members from the Psychology Professional Association-, 64% of the members were younger than 30 years old and only 5% were older than 45. Although it is a young professional group, we can say that Psychology in Spain is a profession in a maturity stage.
Another relevant demographic characteristic is that women constitute the great majority within the profession. Moreover, the number of female graduates is continuously growing and TABLE 3 shows that in the last year considered in the survey (1988-89), the rate between female and male graduates was 9 to 1.
This tendency to an increasingly "feminized" profession is also observed in the next table about the distribution of sexes in different ages. If this tendency continues in the next years, in the future the Psychology in Spain will be a profession dominated by women.
It is only in one of the areas, that is in Work and Organizational Psychology, where male psychologists constitute the great majority. In all other areas, the number of female practitioners exceeds that of men practitioners. This is specially remarkable in Traffic-Safety, where 84.3 % of psychologists are women and only 15.7 % men.
Finally, the geographical distribution of psychologists in Spain presents some notable characteristics. 35.5 % of them live in the province of Madrid. Nevertheless, 27 of 48 observed provinces has at least over 1% of the total number of Spanish psychologists. The six largest provinces in Spain (not included those of Cataluña) concentrate 62.8 % of all the practitioners in Spain. We can conclude, that Psychology is unequally distributed in the national territory.
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TABLE 6 shows the labour situation of Spanish psychologists. The unemployment rate affects 10.5 % of the investigated C.O.P. members. 24,2% of the psychology graduates do not carry out any activity directly related to Psychology and the rest, 65,3%, work as professional psychologists. Those who work full-time in Psychology make up 43 % of C.O.P. members. In 1981 the unemployment rate within Psychologists was 16% so that, despite the increase in the number of professionals, we can observe a growing number of working professionals. This situation is a reflect of the increase the Psychology has experienced in the 80'es in Spain.
We can observe in the next table that the socio-economic situation of female psychologists is worrisome compared to that of male psychologists. Unemployment rate of female graduates is 15%, whereas unemployment rate of male graduates is only 2,1%. This situation is comparable to the unemployment rate of the total population in that moment in Spain, which was 24,8 % for women and 12,5 % for men.
It is among the youngest psychologists where we find the highest rates of unemployment. 37,5% of graduates under 25 years old do not find a job. By contrast, unemployment-rate among psychologists older than 50 years old is zero. By comparing this situation to that of the rest of the society, we can observe some differences. On the one hand, there are no unemployed psychologists older than 50 years, but on the other hand, it is far more difficult for psychologists who are under 25 years to find a job than for those professionals in other areas.
The unemployment problem affects more intensively graduates of the last years and specially those who finished their studies in 1989 (TABLE 8). 34,4% of them are unemployed. By analysing these facts we can make the statement that the increase in the profession has been very important in the 80`es but the labour market for psychologists has reached a stagnation point.
As we have already stated in the above paragraphs, despite the stagnation situation of the labour market for the psychologists, the unemployment rate has decreased since 1981. In the same period the number of professionals who have found a job in areas not related to Psychology has increased remarkably (TABLE 9). This is another fact that indicates the stagnation situation of this professional group. 1 out of 4 graduates is working in other professional fields.
From those psychologists who are working in other fields, 53,8% has at least once worked as psychologists. We can say that a group of psychologists has abandoned the profession and they make up 18,5 of the total number of graduates. TABLE 10 shows us that the percentage of graduates who work as psychologists is steadly decreasing. This fact tells us about the increasing difficulties young graduates have to find a job in its professional area.
From those who have abandoned the psychology, 29,1% work as teachers. Another 20,3% deals with the administration of private companies. Final, the Public Administration employs a further 21,8% of those psychologists in activities which are neither related to teaching.
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In the next lines we will analyse the working conditions and the characteristics of the posts occupied by psychologists in Spain.
Although unemployment seriously affects psychologists, it is also remarkable that nearly half the practitioners (43,5%) does have a professional experience shorter than 5 years (Table 12). This fact shows us, on the one hand, the youth, and on the other the lack of experience of the professionals. We also want to mention that in recent years a large number of psychologists has started their professional careers.
At the same time that we present the labour conditions of the Spanish psychologists, we will also make a comparative analysis of the existing differences within the various specialties in Psychology in terms of the considered variables.
First of all, 62,5% of working psychologists has the category of psychologist in their labour-contracts. This percentage is specially high in areas such as Traffic-Safety (88,6%) and Social Services (84,3%). By contrast, those who work in Educational Psychology are only recognized as psychologists in 55,6% of the cases (Table 13).
As we will see in the next pages this is so because the psychologists dealing with Social Services normally work for the Public Administration and in these cases the labour-contracts are ruled in a more strictly way. In the case of the Traffic-Safety there is an official rule which says that every "Drivers' Examination Center" must have a psychologist.
In the analysis of the type of companies where psychologists work, we observed (Table 14) that a large number of psychologists (39,2%) work for the Public Administration. The private sector employs 21,1% of practitioners. Those who work as psychologists in Social Services and in Teaching and Research are mainly employed by the Public Administration (70,2% in the first case and 54,3% in the second). There has been a considerably increase in these two fields in the 80'es due to the fact that all the Public Administrations (city halls, central and regional governments) have strengthen their social services.
Psychologists working for the private sector deal with two main areas: Traffic-Safety (30,8%) and Work and Organizational Psychology (43,7%). Practitioners working in Traffic-Safety suffer the worst working conditions, as 35,5% do even not have a labour-contract.
There is a 33% of psychologists who work as self-employed. In Clinical Psychology more than half the practitioners are self-employed (53,7%), whereas in Social Services almost nobody is self-employed. That is so because most of the professionals dealing with Social Services work for the Public Administration.
Concerning the labour-contract, it is important to observe that only 6,6% of the professionals in Psychology work without contract, so that the most part of the practitioners have a certain security and legal support.
In reference to how many hours do psychologists work depending on the area they deal with, TABLE 15 shows us that Work and Organizational Psychologists are the one who work more hours per week. Nearly half of them work more than 40 hours the week. On the contrary, those who work less hours are the practitioners dealing with Traffic-Safety and Educational Psychology. 57,5 % of the former and 43,5 of the latter work less than 30 hours per week. Only 10,1 % of the psychologists of the Work and Organizational Area work that weekly average. As we can observe, practitioners in the Traffic-Safety field suffer a worse labour situation.
According to the next table, there are important gaps in the average monthly-income among psychologists. Professionals working for Educational Psychology and Traffic-Safety perceive a salary below the average monthly-income. It is in the field of Work and Organizational Psychology where psychologists earn more in relation to the higher number of working hours per week.
We can also observe that the average price per working-hour paid to self-employed psychologists in the area of Work and Organizational Psychology is the highest one. By contrast, the cheapest hour is that of psychologists dealing with Traffic-Safety, Social Services and Education.
There are clear-cut differences between male and female practitioners when comparing their average salaries. The data in Table 18 even suggests sex discrimination among psychologists. Female psychologists do have a lower average-salary compared to that of male practitioners.
The rate of psychologists who belong to an union varies in the different fields. Practitioners in Traffic-Safety, whose main number works for the Public Administration, have the highest rate of union-members.
By contrast, those psychologists dealing with Work and Organizational Psychology have the lowest rate of union-members. This is the specialty with the highest percentage of psychologists working for the private sector.
When we analyse the rates of psychologists in the different areas who are included in the Social Insurance System (compulsory medical insurance employees pay to the Public Health System ), we can also see some remarkable differences. The two lowest rates are those of Clinical Psychology (57%) and Traffic-Safety. This is so, in the first case, because of the large number of practitioners in this field who are self-employed and have a private medical insurance. In the second case, and as we have already mentioned before, the main reason is the fact that many of them are working without labour-contract.
Finally, in TABLE 21 we present the percentage of psychologists in each professional area who own a car and a house. This can also tell us something about the different socio-economic situation of the psychologists in Spain.
We can clearly see that practitioners in the field of the Work and Organizational Psychology own a house in 66,2 % of the cases. This percentage is remarkably lower in the case of the Traffic-Safety (29,6%) and Educational psychologists (43,9%). The same situation can be observed when talking about car-property among the different professionals. 82, 3% of the Work and Organizational psychologists own a car and, paradoxically, only 29,6% of the Traffic-Safety practitioners have a car.
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From the analyzed data, we can draw some conclusions about the socio-professional situation of the Psychology in Spain.
Psychologists in Spain form a very young professional group with an important part of them having still little working experience.
Female psychologists constitute the majority of the professional group and this tendency is growing from year after year. In 1989 the relation was 9 to 1. Nevertheless, in one of the specialties, that is in Work and Organizational Psychology, the situation is completely different and there is a larger number of male practitioners (6 to 4).
The unemployment rate of psychologists in Spain is high, although the situation has improved in the last ten years. There is a larger number of psychologists and a lower rate of unemployed professionals. Another relevant aspect is the increase in the number of professionals who work in other areas different than the Psychology.
Unemployment mainly affects young professionals. 50% of the unemployed professionals are under 30 years old. What is important to remark here is that the unemployment rate in Psychology is higher than in the rest of the society groups.
We can also talk about sex discrimination against women within the profession. The unemployment rate of female psychologists is higher than that of men, they work less hours a week and get less paid, in average, for the same work as male psychologists do.
The comparative analysis of the Profession classified after the different areas clearly shows us that psychologists in Traffic-Safety suffer the worst working-conditions. Most of the practitioners in this field are women. Many of the psychologists work without a labour-contract and they are not included in the Social Insurance System. This group of professionals has the lowest number of working hours per week and therefore their monthly- incomes are also the lowest ones. Besides this, the average price for the working hour of the self-employed is the lowest one.
The situation of the professionals dealing with Educational Psychology is also worrisome. Many of the psychologists working in this specialty are women, although the rate here is, in average, the same as for the whole professional group. The recognition of their professional category in their labour-contracts is much lower than that of the rest of psychologists. Although many of them work for the Public Administration, a third part of them work as self-employed. This fact is very important as the average -price for working hour in this case is below the global average and because 45% of them work less than 30 hours a week. All these facts give us a brief idea of the professional situation in this field.
There is also a majority of female professionals working in Clinical Psychology. Their recognition as psychologists is below the average for the global group. It is remarkable that 50% of them work as self-employed. This fact affects the number of working hours per week (lower than the global average) as well as the rate of those who pay the Social Insurance System. In this case, the monthly -income is slightly over the average for the global number of psychologists.
There is also a larger number of women working in the area of Social Services. The main employer in this case is the Public Administration. This fact implies a better recognition of their professional category, a higher rate of professionals included in the Social Insurance System as well as a higher number of union members. In this professional area the Public Administration rules the weekly working hours so that there is a greater homogeneity within the professionals. There are just some of them who work as self-employed and those who carry out their career in this way earn a low average salary for working hour.
Work and Organizational Psychology has the highest rate of male professionals. They are very well considered in their labour-contracts as psychologists. They are the professionals who work most hours per week. They also earn more money per month and they have the most expensive working hour within the professional group, too (those who work as self-employed). Another aspect to take into consideration in this area is that it has the highest rate of psychologists working for the private sector. Consequently, many of them contribute to the compulsory social insurance system and the rate of union members is low. This is also the professional group with the highest rate of car- and house properties.
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Created by: Paco&
Javier.
Last Updated: October 16, 1995.
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