data-raw/college-majors/readme.md

In rudeboybert/fivethirtyeight: Data and Code Behind the Stories and Interactives at 'FiveThirtyEight'

College Majors

This folder contains the data and code behind the story The Economic Guide To Picking A College Major.

All data is from American Community Survey 2010-2012 Public Use Microdata Series.

Download data here: http://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/data/pums.html

Documentation here: http://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/technical-documentation/pums.html

college-majors-rscript.R - Assumes you've already downloaded the data and selected only records with non-NA values for college major (FOD1P) - Outputs data to csv

majors-list.csv - List of majors with their FOD1P codes and major categories. - Major categories are from Carnevale et al, "What's It Worth?: The Economic Value of College Majors." Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, 2011. http://cew.georgetown.edu/whatsitworth

Three main data files: - all-ages.csv - recent-grads.csv (ages <28) - grad-students.csv (ages 25+)

All contain basic earnings and labor force information. recent-grads.csv contains a more detailed breakdown, including by sex and by the type of job they got. grad-students.csv contains details on graduate school attendees.

Additionally, women-stem.csv contains data for scatter plot in associated DataLab post on women in science/technology jobs. It is a subset of recent-grads.csv. (Small easter egg: Check out my related Shiny app: https://bencasselman.shinyapps.io/new-test/)

Headers for recent-grads.csv are shown below:

Header | Description ---|--------- Rank | Rank by median earnings Major_code | Major code, FO1DP in ACS PUMS Major | Major description Major_category | Category of major from Carnevale et al Total | Total number of people with major Sample_size | Sample size (unweighted) of full-time, year-round ONLY (used for earnings) Men | Male graduates Women | Female graduates ShareWomen | Women as share of total Employed | Number employed (ESR == 1 or 2) Full_time | Employed 35 hours or more Part_time | Employed less than 35 hours Full_time_year_round | Employed at least 50 weeks (WKW == 1) and at least 35 hours (WKHP >= 35) Unemployed | Number unemployed (ESR == 3) Unemployment_rate | Unemployed / (Unemployed + Employed) Median | Median earnings of full-time, year-round workers P25th | 25th percentile of earnigns P75th | 75th percentile of earnings College_jobs | Number with job requiring a college degree Non_college_jobs | Number with job not requiring a college degree Low_wage_jobs | Number in low-wage service jobs

rudeboybert/fivethirtyeight documentation built on Jan. 1, 2023, 10:17 p.m.