The Quality of Employment in the Career of Young Psychologists and its Impact on their Job- and Life Satisfaction

This study has two purposes: The description of the career and the quality of work of young Flemish psychologists, and the study of the impact of underemployment on their job and life satisfaction. For skill utilisation we differentiate between utilisation of general skills generated by educational level — in this case university level —, and utilisation of specific skills generated by specialised training in this case training as a clinical or organisational psychologist —. Many subjects suffered from unemployment and poor quality jobs during the 3 to 6 years period after graduation, but the quality of their employment improved with time. Subjects who were employed below their university-level, and — to a lesser extend — subjects with insecure jobs, manifested lower job- and life-satisfaction. Non-psychological or part-time work did not affect satisfaction-scores. A regression-analysis however indicated that the utilisation of specific psychological- as well as general university-level skills contributed to job satisfaction. But the impact of the type of skill utilisation differed depending upon the type of professional specialisation: Clinical or organisational.