Job Satisfaction of Humanities Majors
- Despite differences in graduates’ typical earnings, the major academic fields were marked by similarly high rates of job satisfaction among their bachelor’s degree holders (Indicator III-10a). Over 84% of all workers with a terminal bachelor’s degree in the humanities reported they were satisfied with their jobs in 2015, while 90% of humanities majors with an advanced degree expressed satisfaction.
- For graduates in every field except business, earning an advanced degree was associated with a somewhat higher degree of job satisfaction. The smallest boost in satisfaction was found among engineering and physical science graduates, while the largest was among graduates in the arts and humanities fields.
- When both terminal bachelor’s degree and advanced degree holders are considered together, humanities majors’ level of satisfaction with specific aspects of their jobs was quite similar to those of college graduates generally (Indicator III-10b). The largest difference between humanities majors and the entire baccalaureate-holding population with respect to job satisfaction was in the area of salary. While 72% of humanities graduates expressed satisfaction with that aspect of their jobs, the share for all college graduates was 76%.
Source: National Science Foundation, 2015 National Survey of College Graduates. Data analyzed and presented by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Humanities Indicators (www.humanitiesindicators.org).
Conducted every two years, the National Survey of College Graduates (NSCG) gathers detailed education, occupation, and earnings information from a sample of individuals drawn from the larger pool of all those identified via the American Community Survey as holders of a baccalaureate degree. The National Science Foundation makes NSCG data available to researchers and the general public via downloadable data files and its online data analysis tool, SESTAT. Given the size of the NSCG sample, reliable estimates are available only for broad academic fields. For the NSCG disciplinary categories included in each of the field-of-degree categories employed by the Humanities Indicators, see the provided crosswalk. The categories for level of satisfaction in the survey were “very satisfied,” “somewhat satisfied,” “somewhat dissatisfied,” and “very dissatisfied.”
* For comparison of the humanities with other specific fields, see the supporting table.
Source: National Science Foundation, 2015 National Survey of College Graduates. Data analyzed and presented by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Humanities Indicators (www.humanitiesindicators.org).
Conducted every two years, the National Survey of College Graduates (NSCG) gathers detailed education, occupation, and earnings information from a sample of individuals drawn from the larger pool of all those identified via the American Community Survey as holders of a baccalaureate degree. The National Science Foundation makes NSCG data available to researchers and the general public via downloadable data files and its online data analysis tool, SESTAT. Given the size of the NSCG sample, reliable estimates are available only for broad academic fields. For the NSCG disciplinary categories included in each of the field-of-degree categories employed by the Humanities Indicators, see the provided crosswalk. The categories for level of satisfaction in the survey were “very satisfied,” “somewhat satisfied,” “somewhat dissatisfied,” and “very dissatisfied.”
