The shifting gender composition of psychology. Trends and implications for the discipline.

Abstract

Psychology, along with the majority of professions and scientific disciplines, has undergone dramatic shifts in gender composition over the past two decades. These changes have prompted concern that this increased participation by women may lead to erosion in the status of these occupations. This article describes the results of a case study of psychology conducted by a subcommittee of the American Psychological Association's (APA's) Task Force on the Changing Gender Composition of Psychology to examine the discipline's changing gender composition and the factors related to these shifts. Societal and disciplinary trends are examined, along with data on the patterns of men's and women's involvement in the educational pipeline and workplace. The results provide little support for the concern over the increasing representation of women and its impact on the prestige of the discipline. Rather, they suggest that changes in the nature and status of psychology per se may be at least partly responsible for the changes in male and female participation and that the nature, magnitude, and causes of these disciplinary changes require further examination. Specific recommendations for the APA prepared by another subcommittee of the Task Force are also presented in the Appendix.