I believe this to be true, but don’t take my word for it… the National Bureau of Economic Research just published a study that found that double majoring is good for future careers and career earnings. Here’s the abstract:
We study how human capital diversification, in the form of double majoring, affects the response of earnings to labor market shocks. Double majors experience substantial protection against earnings shocks, of 56%. This finding holds across different model specifications and data sets. Furthermore, the protection double majors experience is more pronounced when the two majors are more distantly related, highlighting the importance of diverse skill sets. Additional analyses demonstrate that double majors are more likely to work in jobs that require a diverse set of skills and knowledge and are less likely to work in occupations that are closely related to their majors.
Do Double Majors Face Less Risk? An Analysis of Human Capital Diversification
Andrew S. Hanks, Shengjun Jiang, Xuechao Qian, Bo Wang, and Bruce A. Weinberg
NBER Working Paper No. 32095
January 2024
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Translating the statistics into everyday language: double majors are 56% less likely to suffer from a significant economic shock (i.e., reduction in salary, being fired, etc.) than single majors.
Here’s more from the paper:
We hypothesize that double majors possess a wider range of knowledge and skills than
(page 1 of aforementioned paper)
single majors and that this diversified set of human capital is a buffer against earnings shocks.
However, for double majors, investment in multiple fields may enable them to gain knowledge and skills across a wider range of domains, enhancing their versatility and adaptability in the labor market…. Double majors tend to maintain or further diversify their skill sets in their later careers relative to single majors.
(page 18 from aforementioned paper)
Interestingly, two of the top 20 sets of double majors are a single major in my department. Journalism majors are part of our mass communication degree, and advertising and public relations is also part of our mass communication degree. In the data set, there was also a significant percentage of communication majors (nearly 12%) who were double majors.
This study reaffirms what I say on this site: the world needs more, not fewer, polymaths.