Humanitarians are one of the happiest careers in the United States.
At CareerExplorer, we conduct an ongoing survey with millions of people and ask them how satisfied they are with their careers. As it turns out, humanitarians rate their career happiness 3.8 out of 5 stars which puts them in the top 18% of careers.
To put this into perspective, we compared how happy humanitarians are to similar careers in the industry. Take a look at the results below:
Salaries and satisfaction ratings in similar careers
| Career | Satisfaction | Avg Salary |
|---|---|---|
| Humanitarian | 3.8 | $35k |
| Curator | 3.7 | $53k |
| Historian | 3.6 | $62k |
| Sociologist | 3.4 | $86k |
So what does it mean to be happy in your career? Let’s break it down into different dimensions:
- Salary: Are humanitarians happy with their salary?
- Meaning: Do humanitarians find their jobs meaningful?
- Personality fit: How well suited are people’s personalities to their everyday tasks as humanitarians?
- Work environment: How enjoyable are humanitarian’s work environments?
- Skills utilization: Are humanitarians making the best use of their abilities?
Are humanitarians happy with their salary?
Humanitarians rated their satisfaction with their salaries 2.8/5. Humanitarians tend to be quite unhappy with their salary, with very few reporting satisfaction with their pay.
We asked humanitarians how fairly compensated they are for their work.
Their response was:
2.8 out of 5 stars
334 humanitarians
14% of humanitarians rated their compensation 5 stars
20% of humanitarians rated their compensation 4 stars
22% of humanitarians rated their compensation 3 stars
23% of humanitarians rated their compensation 2 stars
21% of humanitarians rated their compensation 1 stars
Do humanitarians find their jobs meaningful?
On average, humanitarians rate the meaningfulness of their work a 4.1/5. Unlike many careers, humanitarians have little difficulty finding meaning in their work, and it likely constitutes one of the main reasons people become humanitarians.
We asked humanitarians how meaningful they found their work.
Their response was:
4.1 out of 5 stars
342 humanitarians
50% of humanitarians rated how meaningful they found their career 5 stars
26% of humanitarians rated how meaningful they found their career 4 stars
14% of humanitarians rated how meaningful they found their career 3 stars
5% of humanitarians rated how meaningful they found their career 2 stars
4% of humanitarians rated how meaningful they found their career 1 stars
How well are people’s personalities suited to everyday tasks as humanitarians?
Humanitarians rated their personality fit with their work an average of 4.2/5. The majority of humanitarians find their personalities quite well suited to their work, with relatively few having complaints about their fit.
We asked humanitarians how well their personalities fit into their careers.
Their response was:
4.2 out of 5 stars
366 humanitarians
49% of humanitarians rated their career fit 5 stars
34% of humanitarians rated their career fit 4 stars
11% of humanitarians rated their career fit 3 stars
4% of humanitarians rated their career fit 2 stars
2% of humanitarians rated their career fit 1 stars
How enjoyable is a humanitarian’s work environment?
As a whole, humanitarians rated their enjoyment of their work environment 3.9/5. A solid majority of humanitarians enjoy their work environment, probably contributing to overall higher satisfaction with working as a humanitarian.
We asked humanitarians how much they enjoyed their work environment.
Their response was:
3.9 out of 5 stars
361 humanitarians
36% of humanitarians rated their work environment 5 stars
33% of humanitarians rated their work environment 4 stars
19% of humanitarians rated their work environment 3 stars
8% of humanitarians rated their work environment 2 stars
4% of humanitarians rated their work environment 1 stars
Are humanitarians making the best use of their abilities?
Former humanitarians on CareerExplorer have rated their skills utilization 3.6/5. Most humanitarians surveyed find that they manage to use their abilities to their fullest as a humanitarian, which helps contribute to higher career satisfaction in the long term.
We asked humanitarians how well their abilities were used in their careers.
Their response was:
3.6 out of 5 stars
366 humanitarians
30% of humanitarians rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 5 stars
25% of humanitarians rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 4 stars
24% of humanitarians rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 3 stars
14% of humanitarians rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 2 stars
7% of humanitarians rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 1 stars