One of the main investments individuals can make throughout their lives is the decision to pursue a postsecondary education. Indeed, higher education has been linked to hundreds of thousands of dollars, or even millions of dollars, more in lifetime earnings compared with high school graduation (Frenette, 2019). But not all academic programs yield similar outcomes, as lifetime earnings also vary considerably by field of study (Ostrovsky and Frenette, 2014). Of course, careers are more than just a means of generating a stream of earnings.
The type of work employees do may also be an important consideration, as it may provide a level of satisfaction that cannot be captured by earnings alone. One way to qualify jobs in this manner is to look at the occupational classification associated with the jobs held by postsecondary graduates in various fields of study. A challenge in doing so lies in summarizing the vast amounts of results generated by a disaggregated data approach. Nevertheless, Frenette and Handler (2023) adopted this approach, examining the detailed distribution of occupations among bachelor's degree graduates aged 25 to 34 by detailed field of study.
