Psychology is ranked as the most popular career choice for school leavers and a Charles Sturt University (CSU) academic believes it could be because secondary school students who have previously sought help have seen the need to fill critical workforce shortages.
A survey of 45,000 high school students named psychology as the most popular career choice, with more females than males showing an interest in the profession. The survey was conducted by Year13, an organisation dedicated to helping students find the right career path after schooling, and saw psychology ranked 17th most popular choice for male students. The statistic aligns with national trends of currently registered psychologists in Australia. As of September 2024, 80 per cent of the more than 40,000 registered psychologists in Australia were female.
At Charles Sturt School of Psychology in Wagga Wagga, clinical psychologist and Associate Professor Gene Hodgins says a number of reasons may be contributing to the profession’s popularity.
“I think it is a mix of more adolescents being exposed to psychology subjects in high school, more adolescents being clients of psychologists, a decrease in stigma around discussion of mental illness and psychology being an interesting area to study,” he says.
“There has been a concerted effort to increase the availability of mental health services for adolescents over the last 10 years in recognition that the age of onset of many psychological disorders is childhood/adolescence/young adulthood.”
Enrolments increasing at regional uni
CSU has seen an increase in enrolments over the last four years in the Bachelor of Social Science (Psychology) online course, as well as increased applications for post-graduate psychology courses.
Hodgins says the decreased stigma and increased recognition of mental health has led to more people seeking help – and the psychology workforce has struggled to keep up with the demand.
Once the first four years of training is completed, students become a provisional psychologist while they complete the two years of practical training. A psychologist has completed six years of training and is fully registered.
Hodgins says the industry shortage might also result from the bottleneck after the fourth year of training.
“At the moment, we have more students applying for fifth or sixth-year psychology training courses than there are places to train them,” he says.
“While for those who complete their training it means there are very good job prospects, for people in the community seeking psychological help it can be very dispiriting coming against endless waitlists and lack of available services.”
Incentives to work in rural and remote areas needed
Hodgins says the impact of this bottleneck is more acute in regional and rural Australia because there are fewer practising psychologists working. Figures by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare show 109.6 full-time equivalent psychologists per 100,000 population in major cities, compared to 64.6 in inner regional areas, 47.4 in outer regional, 42.2 in remote and 31.1 in very remote areas.
“Ways to address the situation include clearing the HECS debt of rural psychologists, incentives for working in rural areas and more university places in regional universities,” Hodgins says.
Charles Sturt University offers the Bachelor of Social Science (Psychology) and Bachelor of Psychology as undergraduate options and postgraduate options in Psychology, such as a Graduate Diploma of Psychology, Master of Professional Psychology, Master of Psychological Practice and Master of Clinical Psychology.
Hodgins says Charles Sturt offers accredited courses, which enable graduates to complete their provisional or registrar training to become registered psychologists and clinical psychologists.
“We offer 100 per cent online training in these courses that allows students much more flexibility to complete their university psychology training.”
