For policymakers and educators in the humanities, some of the most important questions
concern the career paths of humanities students once they leave the university.
What kinds of work do they wind up doing? In 2009, as part of the
American Community Survey
(ACS), the
U.S. Census Bureau
began collecting data on the fields in which Americans earn undergraduate degrees.
These data reveal the share of humanities majors engaged in different types of occupations,
allowing comparisons with their counterparts in the sciences and more professionally
oriented degrees such as business and education.
How directly are humanities majors applying the skills they acquired in their undergraduate
work? How much can they expect to earn? How satisfied are they in their positions?
These questions cannot be fully addressed with existing data, but the findings of
the
National Center for Education Statistics
(NCES)
Baccalaureate and Beyond
(B&B), a longitudinal study of graduating college seniors, give some answers
for one cohort of young Americans who graduated from college in the mid-1990s.
In addition to providing information on the career paths of humanities college graduates,
this section focuses on the relationship between humanistic education and work in
fields such as business, medicine, and law. Analyses of employment data, as well
as data on graduate school admission tests, permit a rudimentary assessment of the
extent to which humanities training prepares college graduates for a diverse range
of occupations.In addition to providing information on the career paths of humanities
college graduates, this section focuses on the relationship between humanistic education
and work in fields such as business, medicine, and law. Analyses of employment data,
as well as data on graduate school admission tests, permit a rudimentary assessment
of the extent to which humanities training prepares college graduates for a diverse
range of occupations.
Although master’s degrees can be comparable to professional degrees in terms of
preparing students for specialized occupations, as well as in the investments of
time and money that these degrees require for completing the courses of study, no
national data exist on employment outcomes for master’s degree recipients in the
humanities. Because questions relating to master’s degree recipients must be bypassed
for the time being, this section on college graduates in the humanities is followed
by one on humanities Ph.D.’s.
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Indicator III-3
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Occupations of College Graduates Who Majored in Humanities Disciplines
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Updated (11/23/2011) with data from the 2009 American Community Survey.
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Data pertaining to the occupations of college graduates who majored in the humanities
and other fields are now available from the
ACS, which has been administered
on an annual basis by the U.S. Census Bureau since 2005. The ACS replaced the “long
form” version of the decennial census and collects information—used to allocate
more than $400 billion in state and federal funding—about Americans’ personal characteristics,
family composition, employment, income, and housing.
This indicator uses ACS data to describe the occupational distribution of two distinct
groups. The first comprises holders of terminal bachelor’s degrees in the humanities.
The second group is the subset of employed1 humanities majors who, as of 2009, held advanced
degrees in the humanities or other fields (information on the field of advanced
degrees is not collected as a part of the ACS). As Supplemental Table III-3
indicates, employment rates were similar for the two groups, with approximately
84% of humanities terminal bachelor’s holders (TBHs) and 86% of advanced degree
holders (ADHs) having worked at some point in the five years before they responded
to the ACS.2
The HI has chosen to focus its analysis not merely on the currently employed but
on those college graduates who were employed at any time in the previous five years,
because the objective of this indicator is to shed as much light as possible on
what humanities majors go on to do in the way of paid employment and how this compares
to the occupational outcomes of those who majored in other fields. To consider only
the currently employed would be to lose information regarding, for example, the
employment experiences of the recently retired or those who have temporarily exited
the paid labor force to care for children or an elderly family member or to go back
to school.
This indicator also compares the occupational distribution of humanities majors
with those who earned bachelor’s degrees in other fields. The fields differ with
respect to the employment rates of their majors. Supplemental Table III-3
supplies information that facilitates comparison of the different fields along this
dimension.
In 2009, slightly more than half of humanities TBHs, 56%, worked in management,
professional, and related occupations (Figure III-3a).3 These workers included the 15% of humanities
TBHs who were in education-related occupations, approximately two-thirds of them
in precollegiate teaching. Another 12% worked as managers of various kinds. The
two next most prevalent types of occupations in the management and professional
category were business and financial operations and arts, design, entertainment,
and media, with approximately 7% of humanities TBHs holding jobs in each of these
two broad occupational categories.
Looking beyond managerial/professional jobs, approximately 15% of terminal bachelor’s
holders in the humanities worked in office and administrative support occupations.
A similar proportion, 14%, worked in sales, while 9% held service jobs.
Figure III-3b compares humanities TBHs with workers who earned their terminal
bachelor’s degrees in other fields. Although humanities majors were less likely
than those in most other fields to hold professional, managerial, or related occupations,
humanities majors were the likeliest, with the exception of those who majored in
education, to work in the educational profession. Humanities TBHs were also more
likely to work in office and administrative support positions than were TBHs in
any other field. Additionally, compared to TBHs in other fields, humanities majors
were more evenly distributed across major occupational categories, a characteristic
they shared with behavioral and social science TBHs.
In 2009, approximately 44% of people with humanities bachelor’s degrees who had
worked in the previous five years possessed an advanced degree (Figure III-3c).
The humanities majors’ percentage was most similar to that of workers with undergraduate
training in education and the behavioral and social sciences. Workers who had majored
in the life or physical sciences had advanced degree completion rates of 57% and
54% and were the most likely to have pursued such additional academic training.
Workers with majors in engineering, health and medical science, arts, and business
were less likely than working humanities majors to have earned advanced degrees.
Workers who were business majors were the least likely to have obtained an advanced
degree, with approximately 22% having done so.
Humanities majors with advanced degrees were more likely to be working in management,
professional, and related jobs than were majors in the same field who had not pursued
additional education (Figure III-3d). Eighty-six percent of humanities ADHs
worked in occupations of this kind. Among such occupations, those related to education
were the most prevalent, with 31% of all humanities ADHs working in such jobs, more
than twice the percentage of TBHs who did so. Approximately 14% of humanities ADHs
were in precollegiate teaching and 11% in postsecondary. Legal occupations were
the next most common among ADHs who had majored in the humanities. Approximately
14% worked in such jobs.4
A cross-field analysis reveals that the disparity between humanities ADHs and ADHs
in other fields who held managerial, professional, or related positions was less
pronounced than that observed among TBHs (Figure III-3e). A comparison of
the fields also reveals that humanities ADHs and those with behavioral and social
science majors (approximately 15% of whom worked in legal professions) were several
times more likely than those with other types of undergraduate majors to have legal
jobs. As with humanities TBHs, humanities ADHs were more evenly distributed across
the major occupational sectors examined here than were their counterparts with undergraduate
majors in other fields.
Humanistic training at the undergraduate level seems to equip people—by offering
them marketable skills and/or allowing them to successfully pursue advanced training—to
operate in a variety of occupational roles. Approximately 19% of humanities TBHs
and 36% of humanities ADHs worked in “applied humanities” occupations. This occupational
category encompasses education-related jobs (although the ACS data do not indicate
whether those working in education are teaching humanities subjects or administering
programs with a humanities orientation), museum and library occupations, writers,
news analysts, reporters and correspondents, editors (text), and tour and travel
guides.5
However, the data suggest that the bulk of humanities majors—including, for example,
the almost 8% of humanities ADHs who were employed in community and social service
occupations—worked in occupations that were not directly related to the disciplines
in which they received their degrees.6
Notes
1 At any time in the previous five years.
2
Supplemental Table III-3 also supplies an estimate of the proportion
of humanities majors who were employed when they completed the ACS questionnaire
(approximately 93% for those with terminal bachelor’s degrees in the humanities
and 96% of those who had majored in the humanities and then obtained an advanced
degree in the humanities or some other field). This rate is calculated by dividing
the number of currently employed degree holders by the number of degree holders
in the labor force. The way in which the current employment rate is calculated thus
results in a proportion that, counterintuitively, is higher than the share of college
graduates who were employed in the previous five years (the latter calculation includes
all college graduates with a given degree in the denominator, even those who were
not in the labor force at the time of the survey). See Supplemental Table III-3
for a link to a definition of “labor force” and other key concepts.
3 Respondents who had more than one job in the previous five
years were asked to report the job at which they worked the most hours.
4 For an estimate of the share of attorneys who have undergraduate
degrees in the humanities, see Indicator III-5, Undergraduate Humanities Majors and
the Professions.
5 TBHs in “applied humanities” occupations include educators
(14.5% of all humanities TBHs); museum and library staff (0.7%); writers (1.7%);
news analysts, reporters, and correspondents (0.4%); text editors (1.3%); and tour
and travel guides (0.1%).
ADHs in “applied humanities” occupations include educators (30.5% of all humanities
ADHs); museum and library staff (2.43%); writers (1.54%); news analysts, reporters,
and correspondents (0.26%); text editors (1.04%); and tour and travel guides (0.04%).
6 This conclusion seems justified even though the way in which
ACS classifies occupations does not allow for the counting of humanities majors
working in other occupations, such as translators and historians, that can be thought
of as humanistic in their orientation.
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Indicator III-4
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Salaries & Job Satisfaction of Humanities College Graduates
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Data from the National Center for Education Statistics’ B&B study describe not
only what kinds of occupations humanities college graduates pursue (see Indicator
III-3,
Occupations of College Graduates Who Majored in Humanities Disciplines)
but also the quality of their work experience. The salary and job satisfaction data
presented here were collected in 2003, ten years after survey respondents had left
college.
At approximately $48,000 (2007 dollars), the median salary of humanities college
graduates (Figure III-4a) was higher than that of arts majors and those with
degrees in the “helping fields” (social work/public administration and education).
At the same time, however, it was notably lower than the $55,370 median salary for
all college graduates and was also substantially lower than the incomes of students
who majored in the natural sciences, engineering, business, and law, all of whose
median salaries were greater than that for the 1993 cohort as a whole.
In spite of these differences in level of compensation, the academic fields all
reported similarly high average levels of job satisfaction: 87–93% of respondents
with degrees in each field described themselves as being “generally satisfied” with
their jobs (Figure III-4b). Regarding the more specific question of whether
their current employment afforded them opportunities to use their education, approximately
80% of humanities majors said that it did. The majority of these graduates also
reported that their jobs provided opportunity for advancement. The only groups to
report substantially higher levels of satisfaction with this aspect of their 2003
jobs were biological and physical science majors.
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Indicator III-5
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Undergraduate Humanities Majors and the Professions
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In order to assess the extent to which individuals with undergraduate majors in
the humanities are prepared for professional employment, this indicator first focuses
on their performance on professional school entrance examinations in business, medicine,
and law. To be sure, data on the educational backgrounds of those taking professional
school admission examinations do not reveal what careers those individuals actually
pursue. Nonetheless, given the substantial fees and preparation involved in professional
school examinations, test-taking by humanities majors does in itself indicate what
career options they are seriously exploring. Moreover, test results can provide
some measure of the applicability of the humanistic knowledge and skills gained
in college to the entrance requirements for various professional occupations. After
reviewing such professional examination data, this indicator looks more generally
at professional degree holders in order to ascertain what proportion of them have
bachelor’s degrees in the humanities.
Data on who takes the
Graduate Management Admission Test
(GMAT), which are available from the Graduate Management Admission Council, reveal
that GMAT test takers are less likely to be humanities majors than graduates in
any other field, constituting 4–6% of all examinees over the 2000–2009 time period
(Figure III-5a). Students with humanities backgrounds have, however, performed
better than business majors, on average, and approximately as well as social and
natural science majors (Figure III-5b).
Like the GMAT, the
Medical College Admission Test
(MCAT) did not draw many of its examinees from the ranks of humanities majors, who
must do significant work in science, in addition to fulfilling the requirements
for their major, in order to be prepared for the MCAT and apply to medical school.
According to data provided by the American Association of
Medical Colleges, from 1991 to 2009 the proportion of those taking the MCAT who
were humanities majors was approximately 3–4% (Figure III-5c).1 Even though they were in the minority, humanities
majors were strong performers relative to majors in other fields. From 1991 to 2000
they were the highest-scoring group of majors on the MCAT, and from 2001 to 2009
only math and statistics majors scored appreciably higher (Figure III-5d).
Takers of the
Law School Admission Test
(LSAT) are much likelier than those of other professional school examinations to
have undergraduate degrees in the humanities. From 1996 to 2009, the humanities
share of LSAT examinees hovered around 20% of all test takers, according to data
provided to the HI by the Law School Admission Council (Figure III-5e). Over
this time period, humanities majors performed slightly better on the exam than behavioral
and social science graduates, and their average score was within one point of engineering,
math, and natural science majors (Figure III-5f).
From 1996 to 2008, according to data from the
U.S. Census Bureau’s Survey of Income
and Program Participation, approximately
6–8% of all noninstitutionalized U.S. civilians with medical degrees had undergraduate
degrees in the humanities (Figure III-5g). In 2008, 22% of those holding
advanced degrees in law (LL.B., J.D., and Ph.D.) had majored in humanities (down
from the 2001 high of 28%). This proportion was larger than that for any other field,
and it would have been even greater if those with bachelor’s degrees in history—a
discipline considered by the HI to be part of the humanities field, but one that
the Census Bureau classifies as a social science—had been included (Figure III-5h).
Note
1 The figure excludes the percentage of examinees who reported an
undergraduate major in biology. These students are the majority of MCAT test takers.
The AAMC defines the humanities field rather differently than the HI. The former
considers library science and the performing arts to be humanities disciplines but
treats history as a social science discipline.
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