Although most political science faculty probably hope students choose our major to think more deeply about really important things, many students and parents (and even a few faculty) worry that political science will not prepare graduates for careers. Responding to “jokes … that political science majors … have not acquired the necessary practical skills to make a living, let alone to acquire a lucrative career,” Breuning, Parker, and Ishiyama (Reference Breuning, Parker and Ishiyama2001, 657) argue that political science departments need to be much more explicit about the tangible skills they are delivering. In the provocatively titled “Would You Like Fries with That?” Bobic (Reference Bobic2005, 349–50) suggests eliminating the BA in political science altogether, because “the standard program of study in Political Science … virtually guarantees that a student with a Bachelor’s degree will be unable to find employment using those skills or interests.” Although APSA’s Task Force on the Political Science Major (Wahlke Reference Wahlke1991) recommended restructuring the political science curriculum to prepare students for the world, Ishiyama, Breuning, and Lopez (Reference Ishiyama, Breuning and Lopez2006) find that undergraduate political science education has changed very little over the past century, and that departments place little emphasis on career preparation (Ishiyama Reference Ishiyama2005; Collins, Knotts, and Schiff Reference Collins, Knotts and Schiff2012).
Clearly, however, college graduates are more prepared for lucrative careers than are high school graduates. People with bachelor’s degree earn 84% more over their lifetimes than people with high school diplomas (Carnevale, Rose, and Cheah Reference Carnevale, Rose and Cheah2011), though the payoff to a college diploma varies widely by major, by as much as a factor of four (e.g., Altonji, Arcidiacono, and Maurel Reference Altonji, Arcidiacono and Maurel2015; Altonji, Blom, and Meghir Reference Altonji, Blom and Meghir2012; Black, Sanders, and Taylor Reference Black, Sanders and Taylor2003; Carnevale, Strohl, and Melton Reference Carnevale, Rose and Cheah2011). Analysis of earnings by majors shows that economics majors, for instance, earn more than graduates of most other programs (exceptions include engineering and computer science), whether they stop with a bachelor’s degree or earn an MBA or law degree (Black, Sanders, and Taylor Reference Black, Sanders and Taylor2003; Craft and Baker Reference Craft and Baker2003; Winters Reference Winters2015). Similarly, Chen and Johnson (Reference Chen and Johnson2016) find that political science majors fare better than comparable graduates of other fields (collectively) in the federal civil service.
I look more broadly at the success of political science graduates in the labor market. Using recent census data, I follow labor economists’ methodology to compare unemployment rates, educational attainment, and earnings of political science majors to graduates in other fields, controlling for sex, race/ethnicity, age, and educational attainment. The findings are mostly positive: although political science majors have above-average unemployment rates in their 20s, they are among the most likely to obtain graduate degrees and earn meaningfully more than those in most other social sciences and humanities.
The findings are mostly positive: although political science majors have above-average unemployment rates in their 20s, they are among the most likely to obtain graduate degrees and earn meaningfully more than those in most other social sciences and humanities.
DATA AND METHOD
Since 2001, the US Census Bureau has fielded the American Community Survey (ACS) to gather the detailed information on Americans’ personal and work characteristics that was traditionally collected on the census long form. Since 2009, the ACS has asked college graduates the field of study for their undergraduate (but not subsequent) degrees. Combining ACS data for 2009–2014 yields information on a random sample of 3.4 million college graduates, including 86,000 political science majors. Samples are so large that almost all relationships are statistically significant, allowing a focus on the size of differences.
The key independent variables are 28 fields of study (listed in all tables). I use broad categories for most fields, but break out the social sciences—the most likely competitors for our students—into more detailed majors. Regression models use 27 dummy variables for field of study, with political science majors as the reference group; thus, coefficients represent differences from political science majors with similar characteristics on factors that influence career success.
The three dependent variables are unemployment, educational attainment, and annual earnings. The first is coded 1 for those who are unemployed and 0 for those with jobs. I restrict the sample to 21-to-30-year-olds (those with the highest unemployment rates), who are not in school and are in the labor force. I run a logit analysis and convert coefficients on the majors to expected differences in unemployment rates from political science majors, using Stata’s margins command to calculate average partial effects (APEs).
Second, educational attainment has four values (bachelor’s, master’s, professional, and doctoral degrees). I restrict the sample to those aged 34 and above. Footnote 1 I use multinomial logit analysis, as the values do not have a clear order, and translate coefficients into probability differences using APEs.
Third, I run the earnings models on full-time, full-year employees aged 25 and above, who were not in school. The dependent variable is the natural logarithm of annual earnings, a coding that assumes that the independent variables have consistent percentage (rather than dollar) effects on earnings. I exponentiate the 27 major coefficients, subtract 1, and multiply by 100 to yield expected percentage differences in earnings from political science majors.
I control for a variety of factors that affect career success—age/experience, race/ethnicity/gender, sexual orientation, education, time, and location—using dummy variables for each unique value of each independent variable. (See the online technical appendix for justification.)
To tease out how majors affect earnings, I enter variables into the model sequentially. The first only includes major to show average percentage differences in earnings. The second adds educational attainment to compare those with the same degrees. The third adds race/ethnicity/gender, relationship status/sexual orientation, military service, age, and year to see how the type of people who choose each major affects the apparent earnings differences. The fourth includes state of employment and 69 dummy variables for hours worked per week, to examine the impact of where and how much one works. The fifth model repeats the fourth, but limited to people without graduate degrees.
I present the original regression analyses in the online appendix, but show only the percentage differences by major in the tables. In each table, I arrange the majors in order of their success on that measure and present differences from comparable political science majors.
Limitations
Students with different interests and abilities choose different majors, and ability has a substantial impact on earnings (Arcidiacono Reference Arcidiacono2004; Webber Reference Webber2014, Reference Webber2015) and, presumably, educational attainment. Students in the highest-paying majors have the highest mean SAT-math scores (Altonji, Blom, and Meghir Reference Altonji, Blom and Meghir2012), and math ability and classes have important impacts on earnings (Rendall and Rendall Reference Rendall and Rendall2013). Because ACS data do not include any measures of ability, this research cannot test the possibility that differences in abilities among people choosing different majors explain all the differences in unemployment, educational attainment, and earnings. Political science graduates may not have earned more if they had majored in computer science, nor less if they had chosen English.
FINDINGS
Unemployment
Unemployment rates are high for those in their 20s, but substantially lower for college graduates than for the less-educated (4.9% versus 11.7% in 2009–2014). Political science majors’ unemployment rate of 6.6% was nearly the highest among college graduates, however (table 1), and a logit model controlling for individual characteristics did not substantially alter that picture (also see appendix table 1). The first column shows unemployment rates; the rate of 2.8% for health science majors, for instance, is 3.8 percentage points lower than for political science majors. The second column shows the differences in unemployment rates (relative to political science) after controlling for education, age, race/ethnicity, gender, relationship status, year, and state; this difference remained at 3.5 points. Graduates of half the majors—including business, social work, psychology, criminal justice, economics, sociology, and communications—were 1 to 3 percentage points less likely to be unemployed than comparable political science majors. No major had a significantly higher unemployment rate than political science.
Table 1 Probability of Unemployment for 21-to-30-Year-Olds, by Major
Differences from political science are significant at the ***.001, **.01, or *.05 level. Logit model for unemployment includes college graduates aged 21-30 living in the U.S. and not currently attending school. Model uses dummy variables to control for age, educational attainment, race/ethnicity/gender, relationship type, year, and state of residence. Logit coefficients were converted to probability differences using Stata’s margins command to calculate average partial effects.
Educational Attainment
This possible difficulty in starting a career may contribute to political science majors’ decisions to pursue further education. Only 46% of political science majors stopped with a bachelor’s degree; 5.5% earned doctorates, and the remaining 49% were split almost evenly between master’s and professional degrees (table 2). The remainder of the table shows differences from political science in probabilities of each degree after a full set of controls (also see appendix tables 2 and 3). Only biology, philosophy, and physics majors are more likely to obtain graduate degrees, with the difference primarily in doctorates. Political science majors stand out for professional degrees: only biology majors are more likely to earn them, and only history majors are within 10 percentage points as likely as comparable political science majors to do so. One-fifth of political science graduates complete law school.
Only 46% of political science majors stopped with a bachelor’s degree; 5.5% earned doctorates, and the remaining 49% were split almost evenly between master’s and professional degrees (table 2).
Table 2 Educational Attainment of College Graduates Aged 34 and Above, by Major
Differences from political science are significant at .0001, except *.05 or N.S. not significant. Multinomial logit model for educational includes college graduates aged 34 and over, living in the United States. Model uses dummy variables to control for age, race/ethnicity/gender, relationship type, year, and state of employment and for whether currently attending school. Logit coefficients were converted to average partial effects.
Table 3 Top Occupations for College Graduates Who Majored in Political Science
Occupations
Although career guidance for political science majors (e.g., American Political Science Association 2001; Clark Reference Clark2004) typically emphasizes government careers, three-quarters of political science majors work in the private sector. The most common jobs of those with bachelor’s degrees are in management and sales (table 3). Government jobs include public administrators, police officers, and primary school teachers. Those with master’s degrees are most typically in management or education, and most of those with professional degrees or doctorates work as lawyers, though management is also common.
Earnings
Political science majors with bachelor’s degrees earn, on average, 67% more than comparable high school graduates; those with master’s, professional, and doctoral degrees earn 99%, 170%, and 128% more than high school graduates, respectively (not shown). Table 4 shows mean earnings by major, and model 1 of table 5 shows percentage differences from political science majors, controlling for year; only engineering, economics, biology, and physics majors earn more. Political science majors’ mean salaries are slightly higher than those for computer science and business majors and are 20% to 30% higher than for those in English, communications, psychology, criminal justice, and sociology.
Table 4 Mean and Median Salaries by Major, 2009–14
Table 5 Percentage Differences in Expected Earnings Relative to Comparable Political Science Majors, 2009–14
All differences from political science are significant at the .0001 level unless indicated by N.S.
One reason is political science majors’ high educational attainment. When model 2 controls for degree, most majors’ pay rises by at least 10% relative to political science. Individual demographics also explain some of the pay advantage in the most lucrative majors. Engineering, computer science, and economics majors are disproportionately male, white, and Asian (appendix table 4), groups that tend to earn higher salaries overall; when those factors are controlled in model 3, the pay differential shrinks (see appendix table 5). The pay advantage to majoring in the health sciences jumps, however, because of their over-representation of women, blacks, and Latinos. Footnote 2
Adding hours worked and state of employment also shifts political science majors downward (model 4), partly because they are among the four majors who work the longest hours and the three majors who work in the highest-paying states. (In particular, 5.4% of political science majors work in Washington, DC, 4.6 times the rate for college graduates overall and nearly twice the rate even for economics and foreign language majors.) With all these variables in the model, political science majors earn 10% to 20% less than engineering, computer science, health science, economics, and math majors, but only 4% less than business majors and at least 10% more than those in other social sciences and the humanities.
CONCLUSION
Studying political science seems to have a positive impact on students’ careers. Political science majors with bachelor’s degrees earn two-thirds more than comparable high school graduates, and most obtain graduate degrees. Only engineering, economics, computer science, and health science majors make at least 10% more than demographically similar political science majors working the same number of hours in the same states. Our graduates make nearly as much as those who obtain far more career-oriented business degrees, and they earn 10% to 25% more than comparable majors in most other social sciences and humanities, even after controlling for our majors’ higher probability of pursuing graduate degrees. That higher pay depends, in part, on working somewhat longer hours in high-wage, high-cost locations; but a 1-in-20 probability of a career in Washington, DC, may be an attraction to our majors.
Our majors’ relative ranking in the economic hierarchy may have more to do with their innate abilities than with what they learn from us, of course. The ACS data do not include any ability measures to test that possibility, but Altonji, Blom, and Meghir (Reference Altonji, Blom and Meghir2012, supplementary table 2) find that political science majors’ SAT-math scores are markedly lower than those in the highest-paying majors, somewhat lower than those in history and philosophy, and as high as or higher than those in psychology, English, business, other social sciences, and social work. If their findings hold more generally, we can probably claim some credit for our students earning more than history and philosophy majors and reject claims that majoring in business, the other social sciences, or the humanities offers better paths to good careers.
Two weaknesses do stand out. First, young political science graduates had fairly high unemployment rates in recent years. Efforts to smooth the transition to the labor market (e.g., internships, career counseling) could have high short-run payoffs. Second, our career advice should probably recognize more explicitly that political science is a generalist degree. Very few of our graduates go into politics, and only a quarter of them end up in government jobs, many of which are in schools. Substantial percentages work in sales. High unemployment rates in the 20s may partly reflect an unwillingness to accept that reality. Nonetheless, our majors are developing the writing and thinking skills that allow them to succeed in many venues, and many may be deciding to save their professional training for graduate school.
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL
To view supplementary material for this article, please visit https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096516003012.
