September 02, 2004 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Education and number of jobs held from ages 18-38

On average, college-educated women held more jobs than college-educated men among persons age 18 to 38 who were born from 1957 to 1964. Women with a college degree held 11.1 jobs from ages 18 to 38, compared with 10.0 jobs for similarly educated men.

Number of jobs held by individuals from age 18 to age 38 in 1978-2002 by educational attainment
[Chart data—TXT]

Also, women with a bachelor’s degree or higher had more jobs than those without a degree. Women with less than a high school education held 8.5 jobs, those with a high school diploma and no college held 9.2, and those with some college but less than a bachelor’s degree held 10.4.

Men without a high school diploma held 11.6 jobs, the highest among all educational attainment levels for both sexes. Male high school graduates with no college held 10.2 jobs, while male high school graduates with some college held 10.6 jobs.

These findings are from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979. For more information see "Number of Jobs Held, Labor Market Activity, and Earnings Growth Among Younger Baby Boomers: Recent Results From a Longitudinal Survey" (PDF) (TXT), news release USDL 04-1678. Note that, in this article, a job is defined as an uninterrupted period of work with a particular employer. 

 

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