Social Scientist (Other Fields) Career Assessment

2What is a Social Scientist (Other Fields)?

Social scientists study people: how they behave, how they organize, how they make decisions, and what happens when policy or economics or geography pushes on them. The ones with their own government codes — economists, sociologists, psychologists, political scientists, anthropologists, survey researchers — are counted separately. This category holds everybody else: demographers, research associates at policy institutes, program evaluators, human factors researchers, tribal and cultural researchers, and various applied social researchers who do not fit a named box. The common thread is method. You design a study, collect data from or about people through surveys, interviews, records, or existing datasets, analyze it, and write what it means for somebody who has to decide something.

The Reality: Here is the honest accounting. O*NET itself says detailed occupational data is unavailable for this category, because it is an umbrella covering all social scientists and related workers not listed separately. The only detailed occupation underneath it on O*NET is 19-3099.01, Transportation Planners. So there is no standard day, no standard degree, and no standard employer, because there is no standard job. The wage and projection numbers are real BLS and state figures, but they are an average across a mixed bag. On top of that, North Dakota shows about 150 of these positions, projected at about 150 in 2034, which is zero growth, and the national trend is a 2% DECLINE. ND pay of $76,400 trails the national $101,110 by about $25,000 and Minnesota's $103,330 by more. Use this assessment to understand the landscape, then go research an actual job title.

Your Responsibilities:

• Design studies, surveys, and evaluations about people or communities
• Collect data through surveys, interviews, records, and existing datasets
• Clean, code, and manage research data
• Run statistical analysis and interpret what the results actually support
• Write reports, policy briefs, and evaluations for decision makers
• Present findings to boards, agencies, funders, and the public
• Write and manage grant proposals and grant-funded projects
• Keep the research ethical and protect the people in the data

The method is the job. The subject changes with the employer.

3A Day in the Life

8:00 AM — Email. A funder wants the evaluation summary two weeks early.

8:30 AM — Clean survey data. Forty responses have a coding problem.

10:00 AM — Interview by phone. Take notes and record with permission.

11:30 AM — Run the analysis again with the corrected coding.

12:30 PM — Lunch and a look at a grant deadline calendar.

1:30 PM — Write the findings section. Cut two claims the data does not support.

3:00 PM — Meet the program staff and explain what the numbers mean for them.

4:30 PM — Work on the grant proposal that funds next year’s position.

Data, writing, and grant deadlines. The topic depends on who hired you.

4Training in North Dakota

Pick a discipline. This category does not have a degree of its own. Because this is a catch-all, there is no such thing as a "social scientist degree." What you do is choose an actual field — sociology, anthropology, psychology, economics, political science, criminal justice, statistics, data science, human development — get the bachelor’s, and then in most cases go on to a master’s or doctorate, because research positions in the social sciences generally want graduate training. North Dakota has all of these undergraduate majors. Statistics and data analysis are the skills that turn a social science degree into a paying research job, so take more of them than your major requires.

Training Pathways:

• Bachelor’s in a social science (4 years): NDSU lists majors in Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, Economics, Political Science, Criminal Justice, and Human Development and Family Science. This gets you into research assistant, data analyst, and program coordinator work.
• Bachelor’s with a heavy quantitative load (4 years): The version that actually pays. NDSU also lists Statistics, Data Science, and Behavioral Statistics as majors. Pair one of those with a social science and you become the person who can both collect the data and analyze it, which is far more employable than either alone.
• Bachelor’s plus a master’s or doctorate (6 to 10 years): The route to a titled research position. This is where the category name starts to apply to you. Choose the graduate program by the specific research work you want, not by this occupation code.

Where to Train in North Dakota:

• North Dakota State University (Fargo) — undergraduate majors in Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, Economics, Political Science, and Criminal Justice, any of which is a legitimate foundation — catalog.ndsu.edu/curriculum/undergraduate
• North Dakota State University (Fargo) — Statistics, Data Science, and Behavioral Statistics majors. These are the quantitative skills that make a social science degree employable — catalog.ndsu.edu/curriculum/undergraduate
• North Dakota State University (Fargo) — Human Development and Family Science, BS, for applied research in families, programs, and human services — catalog.ndsu.edu/curriculum/undergraduate
• University of North Dakota (Grand Forks) — Geography, BS, and Geography, MS, in the Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science. Human geography and spatial analysis are social science research methods, and the MS emphasizes urban and regional development — und.edu/programs/geography-bs and und.edu/programs/geography-ms
• North Dakota State University (Fargo) — Environmental and Conservation Sciences, master’s and doctorate, which includes an environmental SOCIAL science track. A real example of a social science research position that sits in this catch-all — ndsu.edu/programs/graduate/environmental-and-conservation-sciences
• United Tribes Technical College, Sitting Bull College, Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College, Cankdeska Cikana Community College, and Turtle Mountain College — all offer Native American and Indigenous Studies and human services programs, and tribal research and evaluation positions are a real part of this category in North Dakota — uttc.edu/academics, sittingbull.edu/academics, nhsc.edu/academics, littlehoop.edu/academics, tm.edu/academics

Before You Start: High school diploma or GED. Take statistics if your school offers it, and take writing seriously. In this field the two skills that get you hired are being able to analyze data honestly and being able to explain it to somebody who will not read the technical appendix.

Tip: Start with financial aid and scholarships. Fill out the FAFSA, ask the school’s financial aid office what you qualify for, and ask an employer whether they help pay for school. That is where the money starts. After that, a career counselor or Job Service North Dakota may be able to help with what is left over, like tuition, books, a laptop, or exam fees. What can be paid for depends on the program and on your own situation, so ask before you enroll rather than after. Worth asking about specifically: two-year degrees that train you for a job, like civil engineering technology, land surveying, mechatronics, electronics, or instrumentation. North Dakota two-year colleges also cost far less than a university. Ask about paid summer internships too — engineering firms, plants, and survey crews hire students while they are still in school.

5Certification & Licensing

There is no license, and no certification for this category. North Dakota does not license social scientists and there is no credential that covers this category, because the category is not a profession. What substitutes for a license here is your degree, your methods training, and your publication or report record. There are a few things employers do look for, and they are worth knowing.

What Stands In for a Credential:

• No state license — nothing to register for, nothing to renew. If you go into clinical psychology or clinical social work, those ARE licensed, but those are different occupations with their own codes, not this one
• Your graduate degree — in research work this does what a license does elsewhere. It is the thing that lets you be principal investigator on a project
• Human subjects research training — anyone collecting data from people at a university or an agency completes ethics and human-subjects training. Employers arrange it, and an Institutional Review Board reviews the study
• Demonstrated statistical software skill — R, Python, SPSS, Stata, or SAS. This is what actually gets read on a resume in this field. It is learnable outside a degree program
• A portfolio of reports — published work, evaluations, and briefs you actually wrote. In a field with no credential, this is how you prove you can do it
• A credential belonging to the specific job — if the position you want is transportation planning, the AICP credential applies; if it is survey research, look at that field’s professional association. Chase the credential for the job title, not for this category

The Exams: There is no exam for this occupation. Any exam you take will belong to a specific discipline or credential you chose.

Cost: No licensing cost. The graduate degree is the cost, and it is the main one.

Keeping It Current: Nothing to renew. Human subjects training is typically refreshed on the employer’s or the review board’s schedule.

6Salary & Job Outlook

North Dakota Social Scientist and Related Worker, All Other Pay (May 2025):

• Starting out (bottom 10–25%): $20.50–$22.89/hour ($42,630–$47,610/year)
• Middle (median — half earn more, half earn less): $36.73/hour ($76,400/year)
• Experienced (top 25–10%): $43.83–$49.70/hour ($91,170–$103,380/year)

What that means: These are real North Dakota numbers, but read them knowing they average a mixed group of jobs. The ND middle is $36.73 an hour, about $76,400 a year, against a national middle of $101,110. That is a gap of roughly $25,000, one of the widest on this list. Minnesota’s middle is $103,330. The ND bottom is much lower too, with a 10th percentile of $42,630 and a 25th of $47,610 against national figures of $66,120 and $80,860. Notice the size of the jump from the ND 25th at $47,610 to the ND middle at $76,400 — nearly $29,000 — which again suggests two different groups of jobs sharing one label rather than one career with a normal pay curve. The practical lesson is the same as everywhere else in this entry: find out what the SPECIFIC job you want pays at the SPECIFIC employer, because this category average will not tell you.

Jobs in North Dakota: About 150 people do this work in ND today. By 2034, that should be about 150 (about 0% growth). Expect about 10 job openings every year in ND from growth and people retiring or changing jobs. Across the U.S., the change is about 2% decline.

Outlook: Flat here and shrinking nationally, which is the plainest way to say it. North Dakota is projected at about 150 of these positions in 2024 and about 150 in 2034: zero growth, about 10 openings a year. The national projection is a 2% DECLINE with 3,200 openings a year. Do not read that as "social science is dying," because the named social science occupations are counted elsewhere and some of them are growing. Read it as: this leftover category is not expanding, and a lot of the positions inside it are grant funded, which means they exist as long as the grant does. If you want this kind of work in North Dakota, the university, the tribal colleges and tribal programs, state agencies, and nonprofit research and policy organizations are where to look, and you should ask hard questions about how the position is funded.

Who Hires in ND: NDSU and UND research centers and grant-funded projects, the tribal colleges and tribal government programs, state agencies including health, human services, commerce, and transportation, regional planning councils, nonprofit and policy research organizations, foundations, market and survey research firms, and consulting firms doing program evaluation.

Work Setting: An office or a campus, mostly. A computer, statistical software, and writing. Some positions involve field data collection: interviews, focus groups, site visits, community meetings. Many are grant funded and time limited, which affects how secure the job feels even when the work is good.

Physical Demands: Low. Desk and computer work, with travel for data collection or meetings. The demands are cognitive and organizational, not physical.

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, North Dakota, May 2025 (SOC 19-3099); North Dakota and U.S. long-term employment projections 2024–2034, via O*NET OnLine. Numbers are rounded.

7Where This Leads

Path 1: Research Assistant — Entry level, often at a university. Data collection and cleaning.

Path 2: Research Analyst or Data Analyst — You run the analysis. Quantitative skill is what gets you here.

Path 3: Program Evaluator — You measure whether a program actually worked, and say so.

Path 4: Research Associate or Scientist — You design studies and lead projects. Usually needs a graduate degree.

Path 5: Tribal or Agency Research Staff — Applied research inside a tribal program or state agency.

Path 6: Principal Investigator or Research Director — You win the grants and run the shop. Usually a doctorate.

8The Real Talk

What's Great:

• Work that answers real questions about people
• Quantitative skills transfer to any industry
• Tribal and community research is genuinely needed here
• Low physical demand and flexible settings
• Many routes in, from several different majors
• Your reports can change what a program does

What's Hard:

• It is a catch-all, not a real job title
• Zero projected ND growth and a national decline
• ND pay trails the US by about $25,000
• Only about 10 ND openings a year
• Most real positions want a graduate degree
• A lot of the work is grant funded and temporary

Be Honest: Are you willing to pick a specific discipline and a specific job title rather than planning around a category? Will you take enough statistics to be the person who can actually analyze the data? Can you handle work that is often grant funded and not permanent?

9Part 1: What Attracts You?

10Part 2: Are You Ready?

11Part 3: Your Next Move

Your Social Scientist (Other Fields) Assessment Results