By College Major,Erik Sherman,Senior Contributor

Copyright forbes

Money, gender bias and salary inequality in workplace between team of equal professional employee colleagues.

Old expectations of college majors and the guarantees of a good future — how STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) is the key to the door of life — is under stress and cracking. Newer data shows more surprises about poverty rates and gender pay gaps by majors.

Hiring Security Takes A Jolt

As a reminder, according to some data from 2023, unemployment by majors had some unexpected performance. Here are the 10 majors in which people had the lowest unemployment rates:

Nutrition sciences, 0.4%

Construction services, 0.7%

Animal and plant sciences, 1.0%

Civil engineering, 1.0%

Special education, 1.0%

Agriculture, 1.2%

Early childhood education, 1.3%

Aerospace engineering, 1.4%

Nursing, 1.4%

Earth sciences, 1.5%

And here are the 10 majors with the highest unemployment:

Anthropology, 9.4%

Physics, 7.8%

Computer engineering, 7.5%

Commercial art & graphic design, 7.2%

Fine arts, 7.0%

Sociology, 6.7%

Computer science, 6.1%

Chemistry, 6.1%

Information systems & management, 5.6%

Public policy and law, 5.5%

The first surprise might be how computer engineering, computer science, physics, chemistry, and information systems & management could have faced some of the higher unemployment. Understanding the difference between easy stories and harder truths is important for younger people who want to navigate their way through early adult life.

Poverty Levels

The official poverty rate in the U.S. dropped 0.4 percentage points between 2023 and 2024, from 11.0% to 10.6%. The Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) rate, which was designed to consider more signs of economic hardship like housing and medical costs, was 12.9%.

As the image of a college education providing the future to financial security has already started to show cracks, here is another — the top and bottom poverty rates by major. All of the majors have poverty rates well below the national average. Still, there are the relative differences. Here is the list:

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Mechanical Engineering (3.1%)

Nursing (3.1%)

Elementary Education (3.1%)

Finance (3.2%)

Marketing (3.4%)

Computer Science (3.5%)

Electrical Engineering (3.5%)

Other Education Degrees (3.5%)

Civil Engineering (3.6%)

Accounting (3.6%)

Chemistry (3.7%)

Communications (3.9%)

History (3.9%)

Other Business Degrees (4.1%)

Mathematics (4.2%)

Political Science (4.2%)

General Business (4.2%)

Business Management and Administration (4.2%)

Economics (4.3%)

Biology (4.4%)

Engineering (4.5%)

General Education (4.5%)

Sociology (4.6%)

Criminal Justice and Fire Protection (4.6%)

English Language and Literature (4.8%)

Family and Consumer Sciences (4.8%)

Psychology (5.0%)

Commercial Art and Graphic Design (5.0%)

Social Work (5.3%)

Other Degrees (5.4%)

Liberal Arts (6.4%)

Fine Arts (7.3%)

Fine arts at the bottom seems to have some rationale to it. The position of elementary education among the least susceptible to poverty might be surprising, but elementary school teachers are scarce and in demand.

The more interesting point is a significant transition point with economics, with a 4.3% poverty level. Everything below has a higher poverty level, and the numbers mean that there’s a greater chance of being poor than the national average chance of being unemployed.

Gender Pay Gaps By College Major

Next, the gender pay gap by college major. This is tricky for multiple reasons. People on either side of the question frequently take absolute positions. Some claim that a national average of a pay gap means that all women face the same form and degree of inequity. All are underpaid.

On the other extreme is the argument that the dynamic is a matter of other factors, such as the types of work women choose; maternity disruptions to careers; less willingness on the whole to work long hours or more physically demanding positions; and poorer negotiation skills.

Both are right in terms of contributing factors. One point, though, is that if career choice and education were the issue, if people selected themselves by inclination, taste, and temperament to weighted representations in different courses of study, one might expect to see near equity within those selections. Below is the list from Census Bureau data.

Social Work (9.5%)

Mechanical Engineering (14.5%)

Nursing (14.6%)

Physical Fitness, Parks, Recreation, and Leisure (14.6%)

Communications (14.9%)

Civil Engineering (15.0%)

Electrical Engineering (15.0%)

Elementary Education (16.0%)

Other Education Degrees (18.0%)

Fine Arts (18.7%)

Political Science (18.8%)

English Language and Literature (19.4%)

General Education (19.6%)

Other Degrees (20.2%)

Computer Science (20.4%)

Sociology (20.7%)

Economics (21.0%)

Liberal Arts (21.3%)

Chemistry (22.2%)

Commercial Art and Graphic Design (22.3%)

History (22.5%)

Psychology (23.1%)

Finance (24.9%)

Accounting (25.0%)

Biology (25.3%)

Mathematics (25.8%)

General Business (26.0%)

Marketing (26.1%)

Engineering (26.3%)

Family and Consumer Sciences (26.8%)

Business Management and Administration (26.9%)

Criminal Justice and Fire Protection (27.1%)

Other Business Degrees (28.7%)

Other Science and Engineering Degrees (29.2%)

In each case, every positive percentage shows the degree of underpayment that women receive on the whole.

There isn’t a single area of study in which women, who greatly outnumber men, would show a pay advantage. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing says that as of 2022, the percentage of male nurses hovers around 12% to 13%. Even there, women face a 14% gap.

Chances are that many people work outside of the field in which they received their degree. But that would seem to likely even out across all people and studies. However, that isn’t the case, suggesting that there is a gender bias across all industries and backgrounds.

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