As academics on both sides of the Atlantic fret over the fate of the humanities, a new report suggests that those who earned degrees in philosophy, literature, and related areas play a significant role in the British economy.
University of Oxford graduates who majored in humanities subjects found jobs in professions, like finance, that drove national growth from the 1970s through the 1980s, according to the report, published on Thursday.
The findings in the report, “Humanities Graduates and the British Economy: The Hidden Impact,” are based on an analysis of the employment history of 11,000 graduates who matriculated at the university from 1960 to 1989. According to the report, the number of graduates with degrees in English, history, philosophy, classics, and modern languages who were employed in finance, media, legal services, and management rose significantly from 1960 to 1989.
The report comes at a time when, in Britain as in the United States, the humanities have come under pressure to demonstrate their worth, as science and technology are increasingly seen as engines of economic growth.
As the report puts it: “The long-established central position and general values of the humanities at the heart of British higher education are being displaced in current educational policy by an approach that sees knowledge as more appropriately generated and governed by markets for skills and technical information that respond to immediate economic needs.”
A Persuasive Retort
Shearer West is head of Oxford’s humanities division, one of four academic divisions at the university that includes the departments of classics; English; history; linguistics, philology, and phonetics; medieval and modern languages; music; Oriental studies; philosophy; and theology and religion; as well as the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art.
While the report focuses narrowly on the graduates of a single institution with very specific academic qualifications, Ms. West said that the methodology it employed, tracking the career progress of graduates over a long period, had never been done before and that its findings are revealing.
“What this demonstrates is that a humanities degree equips people for a range of employment possibilities across a number of areas, including core areas of the economy and areas not normally associated with the humanities, such as business and management and financial careers,” she said. “During a time when the U.K. was going through a period of growth, humanities graduates were going into all the major growth areas and were contributing in a major way.”
The report offers a persuasive retort to the increasingly widespread popular notion that “if you do a humanities degree, you might be happy, but you’re not going to make any money because there are only so many things you can do with it,” she said.
The Power of an Oxford Diploma?
Graduates of Oxford, along with their counterparts at the University of Cambridge, have long been well represented in top positions in a variety of fields, like the arts, finance, and politics. Asked whether the report provided evidence of the strength of a humanities education or just the power of an Oxford diploma to open doors, Ms. West emphasized that the study was just a pilot, without comparative studies to assess it against, and therefore doesn’t provide a full answer to that question.
She pointed out, however, that the second part of the report, based on in-depth interviews with 50 graduates about their experiences and their responses to changing job markets, supported the view that it was the unique qualities of a humanities education that had made the difference in their careers. Those qualities, which include critical thinking, leadership, communication, problem solving, and a broad understanding of the human condition, “are about the humanities, not about Oxford,” she said.
The report’s findings back Ms. West’s view that the humanities in general “have no reason to be defensive.” Global economic turmoil has placed pressure on all academic fields, and, especially because higher education in Britain remains largely publicly financed, “we shouldn’t feel under siege if we are asked to justify ourselves and to justify the expenditure on ourselves,” she said.
As far as the humanities are concerned, she said, “I don’t like the idea of a crisis. This notion has been in the air since the Industrial Revolution and is no more true now than it was then. The humanities are not in crisis.”