Remuneration in the field of Psychology, has anything changed since the last decade
The Indian Psychologists Network, in collaboration with Psyche Vitality, is conducting a nationwide survey to analyze the remuneration, career satisfaction, and challenges faced by psychology professionals across various sectors in India. This audit aims to identify key employment trends, salary disparities, gender gaps, and career progression among clinical, counseling, teaching, and research professionals in government, private, and non-profit sectors.
Two decades earlier the major discussion in the field of psychology was a serious lack of trained professionals in the field of mental health, which still has not changed significantly. In the United States in 2015, there were 100,305 licensed psychologists based on APA's 2015 state licensing board list. If we speak of numbers then the current mental health workforce in India is only 0.07 psychologists per 100,000 people.
There is not only a significant gap in identification of mental health issues, but also in the number of trained professionals.
In a study by Agarwal, G., (2015), the author reported a lot of uncertainties in terms of appropriate placements of psychology graduates and their pay scales. It was reported that most of the psychology graduates either go on to work in academics or as a social worker, due to lack of opportunities and proper remuneration.
With the passing of the Mental health care bill, 2017 and Allied health professional Bill 2021, has anything changed?
Every year hundreds of students are completing their post graduate training to be a counsellor, psychotherapist, school counsellor, rehabilitation psychologist. Many among them decide to go for further higher education to be an educational psychologist, clinical psychologist, forensic psychologist, sports psychologist, consumer psychologist and organisational psychologist and so on. After dedicating nine years to graduating and completing a doctorate degree, why are they at the bottom of the salary pyramid as compared to medical doctors or psychiatrists?
With the support and initiative of the Indian Psychologists Network and the collaborators, we are doing this study with the following objectives:
1) To understand what are the discrepancies faced by psychology professionals in terms of remuneration.
2) In which field are most of the psychology professionals involved?
3) Which sector (government, private, or not-for-profit) has the highest remuneration for the psychology professionals?
4) What is the current gender gap in terms of psychology professionals?
5) A qualitative analysis of their feedback and input on what they think are the issues?
6) Level of satisfaction with the career progression.