The numbers about the psychologists in US and Italy

• About 499,000 (14%) also held graduate degrees in psychology, with 13% earning a psychology master’s degree and 4% earning a psychology doctorate or professional degree. The overlapping 3% earned both master’s and doctoral or professional degrees.2
• About 30% held graduate degrees in fields other than psychology, such as education, health and social services.3
• The remaining 2 million (56%) did not earn graduate degrees.
• The proportion of psychology bachelor’s degree holders who held a graduate degree was progressively higher from the “ages 24 or younger” group through the “ages 30–34” group, then stabilized, suggesting that the majority of people complete their graduate education by age 30.

In Italy, I found little information available from the web.

The tendency to continue with the studies after the bachelor degree is also evident from the data coming from the Italian Associaton of Psychologists, according to which almost all of the approximately 105,000 psychologists are registered in section A of the register, reserved for those who have in their CV not only the three-year degree but also the graduate degree, plus a year’s training and passing the State examination for professional qualification. Only a few hundred are enrolled in section B, which provides for various limitations on professional practice and which can be accessed only with a three-year degree (bachelor), accompanied by semi-annual training and due state examination. Of the 105,000 enrolled in the register, however, only 60,000 actually carry out the profession of psychologist: there is therefore a difficulty in actively entering the labor market is obvious.