We have just passed an important milestone in the life of an Anthropologist, graduation season. Starting in May and running through June universities in America will harvest a new crop of Anthropology graduates (Archaeology is a part of Anthropology in the US). Some of these new graduates will be apprehensive about getting a job, some may even be looking for a job in Anthropology. They will wonder how many other people have been given similar skills as them- their competition.
Anthropology gives you such a diverse range of skills that the jobs you can do are endless. Just look at this amazing infographic of people that have Anthropology degrees and what they do. Great for careers but it means I cannot tell you how many jobs there are for people with Anthropology degrees. I can tell you how many people have an Anthropology degree in the US. I did something similar just Archaeology degrees that you can see in this post.
367,185 Anthropology Degrees, Probably 400,000
367,185 is the number I estimate for all degrees, about 19,543 PhDs, 48,654 MA/MSc, 284,909 BA/BSc, and 13,776 other degrees/certficates. At a minimum there is roughly 299,000 people with an Anthropology degree. The minimum assumes everyone with an undergrad/other degrees also got all of the Anthro. postgrad degrees. Plenty, of people with postgraduate degrees in Anthropology got their undergrad degree in another subject so the actual number is probably much larger. Also, as I explain below, the data for second majors is only from 2001 – 2012 and if we were to extrapolate that back it would add an additional 20,000 people. These numbers are from 1920-2012 for PhDs and only from 1948 for BAs and MAs. While the numbers are not significant there are probably several thousand other people with degrees that have been missed over the years. We are actually looking at closer to 400,000 total degrees and a minimum of 320,000.
Anthropologists are Generation X and Y
Half of all degrees have been given out since about 1992. The majority of Anthropologists, well people with anthropology degrees, have got their degrees in the last 25 years. The graphs below really capture this trend. It makes you wonder if that is reflected in the current make up of people working as Anthropologists?
How Did I Get Those Numbers?
My data comes from several sources. The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) both keep track of degrees awarded. The data can be accessed from this great web portal, WebCASPAR. The NSF data only looks at PhDs and is from 1920-2012, but only 1966 onwards is online. I got the pre-1966 from this report, U.S. Doctorates in the 20th Century, but it states, ‘For the years 1920–57, public sources, such as commencement programs and institution lists, provided limited information’. So take these numbers with a bit of skepticism.
NCES
There is also NCES data, which also runs from 1966 but includes BAs, MAs, etc. This source also gives other course awards like associate degrees, certificates, etc. and those degrees that list Anthropology as a 2nd major. This data is not complete. Before 1983 there is no data for other degrees, like associate, and before 2001 there is no data for 2nd major degrees. We don’t actually know how many of these degrees were given out before that date. At the moment 2nd majors are about 10% the number of single majors. That percentage can be used to extrapolate the data back.
AAA
The AAA has been tracking numbers of degrees given through their AnthroGuide lists of departments. The AAAs sent the data to me awhile ago so it only goes up till 2009. You will notice it looks like the AAA data lists more degrees than the other sources till recently then drops off. I believe that is because the AnthroGuide includes universities outside of the US (increase) and with the recession fewer departments are submitting data to the AnthroGuide, as demonstrated in this presentation.
They Came from a Strange Land
We don’t know the number of people with Anthropology degrees who have left the country or who obtained their degree from another country (cough, Canadians). I am assuming this is wash, equal leaving vs. equal coming in, but I don’t know.
A Picture is Worth a 10,000 Anthropologists
Number of Anthropology BA/BS degrees
Number of Anthropology MA/MSc degrees
Number of Anthropology PhD degrees
Estimating Degrees
To get the estimations I talked about earlier I took the high and lowest possible numbers from the data sources and averaged them.
Degrees Highest Possible Lowest Possible Mid Point
All Degrees 395,587 338,784 367,185
Other Degrees 4,848 4,848 4,848
2nd Major 8,928 8,928 8,928
PhD 20,326 18,760 19,543
MA/MSc 52,561 44,746 48,654
BA/BS 308,924 260,894 284,909
Data
If you want the data I used. Here it is –Number of Anth Degrees Data
Free use – I put this data into public domain – I wave whatever legal IP rights I might have for the data which should be none because it is in public domain to begin with and you can’t copyright data. But in case of EU database laws I wave those rights too. Though if you want to let me know you used the data I would appreciate a quick email. Would love to know if someone uses it.
This was originally posted on October 11th, 2011. As part of a series,Throwback Thursdays, I am revisiting old posts and revising them. This one I pretty much gutted but I still kept some of the original content.
References
Thurgood, Lori Golladay, Mary J. and Hill, Susan T. 2006. U.S. Doctorates
in the 20th Century. National Science Foundation, Arlington, VA
Doug's Archaeology 
dover1952
July 18, 2014
Well, right after my M.A. degree in anthropology in 1982, I quit anthropology/archaeology cold turkey and started searching for a job far less that half-heartedly. In almost no time really, I got an interview to be an editor for a major national communications company, and I got an interview through a friend to do training development work for the U.S. Department of Energy through Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU), a well-known university consortium that has functioned as a cutting edge government “think tank” since the end of World War II. The guy who interviewed me at the latter told me “straight up” that he preferred to hire people with my kind of background because people like us anthropologists (and other liberal arts/social science types) tend to have a wider range of knowledge and experience to build on in doing a job. That diversity of knowledge and capability was valued back then. I took the ORAU job and expanded my horizons into other areas after technical areas in later years.
I think the major thing modern employers have lost sight of is an understanding that the purpose of college is not to train people (like dog training) for a specific career. It is to give people a large base of knowledge—preferably as wide as possible too—and teach them how to continue to learn, build on, and apply knowledge ON THEIR OWN throughout life. Every person who goes to a job—any job—has to learn that unique job. Often times, college prepares one very little for the actual content of that job. And here is another interesting statistic from the U.S. Department of Labor, if I can recall it correctly, 10 years after graduating from college—most Americans end up doing a job that has little or nothing to do with the subject they majored in while at university.
With the exception of something highly specialized like law or engineering—I would take an anthropology major or a liberal arts major any day of the week and teach them how to do the job and set them on the pace to a career—but with one caveat. I would want the really smart person with that anthropology or liberal arts degree. A person has to be smart enough to learn that new job while on the job and smart enough to expand their knowledge into different areas as they go through the years. Basically, I would only be comfortable with anthropology or liberal arts majors with a 3.8 GPA or higher (that is over all courses taken in college—not just in their major subject area). In my opinion, the people who lope through an anthropology or liberal arts major with a 2.5 GPA are asking for really big trouble—and a lot of them are going to get it too. I know one such person who did that, and her life has been nothing but misery for the past 30 years. Anecdotal I know—but I would bet there are many more like her.
Doug Rocks-Macqueen
July 21, 2014
3.8 GPA- interesting. I personally would never use GPA and why is probably best saved for a blog post. In terms of hiring I have very few criteria- reliable (on-time or the level enough head to call if running late), willingness to learn, drive to learn, drive to work- almost all characteristics that you can not teach someone.
dover1952
July 21, 2014
Hi Doug. I used GPA as the primary criterion because of an article written by an old timer about 15 years ago. He noted that he is always hearing people in business today whining about not being able to find really good employees and wishing out loud that there was some sort of single-criterion litmus test that would easily single out a great employee from the mediocre pack. In the article, he said that such a litmus test (college GPA) actually existed back around the turn of the 20th century (1900-1920) and was commonly used in hiring—apparently with a very high rate of success. He went on to say how amazed he was that the American business community had totally forgotten it by the end of the 20th century.
I know that probably raises more questions than it answers. For example, if it was working all that well, why did they forget it? Was it working for a while, but did some sea change in academia make it become unreliable? That—I don’t know. There is also the argument that grade inflation in American universities would have easily deep-sixed such a litmus test.
Still though—I like it on principle—with my 1960s and 1970s mindset. In those days a 3.8+ GPA meant something. It was impossible to get grades like that without literally working your ass off, which usually translated into working your ass off in a real job. You could not achieve it without showing up to class on time and never missing a class. Every really serious student knew (at least where I went to college) that if you were going to miss an exam day—you better be near death in a hospital. Human weakness like a real case of influenza was no excuse for missing an exam. You had to show up and take it or you got an automatic F grade. Human weakness on a variety levels, with just about every professor one would encounter, was simply not tolerated on any level.
I just think anyone who could survive all of that with a 3.8+ GPA would be a really good employee. However, the grade inflation issue might be a real problem today. A few years ago, I went over to my old alma mater one day just after final exams and saw exam grades posted on the walls outside the offices of professors. I never saw so many A’s and B’s in one class!!!! Nearly everyone in the class had an A or B grade. In my day, that list would have been mostly C’s, D’s, and F’s with a light sprinkling of A’s and B’s. After my daughter’s first year in college and the things she told me, it became readily apparent that the average college professor today is a lot more tolerant than the ones I had in the 1970s. They are really bad about cancelling their own classes for nearly any lame excuse, and they let their students make up missed exams for just about any similarly lame excuse.
You know what Doug—I might have just talked myself out of that GPA litmus test? Anyway, the old timer really did say that GPA was the most reliable discriminator for hiring in his day.
Doug Rocks-Macqueen
July 21, 2014
Writing up a post right now on grade inflation. Using your comment as an excellent jumping off point. Pretty much touches on your points of 1970s mind set and grade inflation. Be up shortly.