Earnings, Occupation and College Degree: A Focus on the Economics Major

This study explores the occupations of college graduates by major, with a focus on the economics major, using American Community Survey microdata. We identify the most common occupations for mid-career workers whose highest degree is a bachelor’s degree, and report median income for each occupation. We also identify common industries, and present a ranking of all majors by earnings and self-employment rates. The code file can be modified so the analysis can be done for any major; the replication package includes an example for mathematics. Other extensions, such as relaxing the limitation to use only those whose highest degree is a bachelor's, can also be done by modeling the R script.