What careers have the least ageism?

[Anonymous]

Besides government, what careers are good choices for someone entering their mid/late-40s? What if you don't want to be a teacher, nurse, or SLP? I've heard of several women trying to enter tech in their 40s by learning UX design, cybersecurity, or web development. Is that futile? What about construction/trades?

[Anonymous]

Probably anything where experience matters and the rate of change in the industry is low. Tailor. Watch maker. Cabinet maker (carpenter). Typesetter/printer. Stuff like that.

[Anonymous]

Medicine

[Anonymous]

Medicine. Academia. Engineering (not necessarily software). Writing.

[Anonymous]

It's going to be hard to find a profession easy to enter midlife, making good money, with job stability that will last for 15-20 years.

Most of those jobs either require you to have been building up skills and experience prior in your life, require a huge amount of natural talent (e.g., painting as an artist professionally), or are going to be so rare and valued that they are terribly competitive.

Would you be willing to make little money for a while as you were learning a trade, such as plumbing?

[Anonymous]

Perhaps real estate. My sister started at 54 after teaching. Granted, she has teacher's pension but makes decent money at real estate. Income is not steady though.

[Anonymous]

Become a geriatric physician.

[Anonymous]

Therapist (see earlier threads on most efficient pathways). Not uncommon to see people working into their seventies and beyond.

[Anonymous]

I’m in my mid-40s and have been in web design/development for almost 15 years. This is a young person’s field. I’m ready to phase myself out. I can’t imagine trying to get in now at this age. Maybe not impossible if you have a lot of talent and can hang with the kids, or if you’re fine with working on boring government websites.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Medicine. Academia. Engineering (not necessarily software). Writing.

Politics and media seems to keep them for long time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Medicine

There is ageism here, for sure.

[Anonymous]

Teaching can work very well as a later in life career change. Teach for America has a substantive percentage of participants who are mid life career changers, and they encourage it as older folks with other career experience have a lot to offer students. I had lots of older teachers when I was a student both in K-12 and at university. As long as you don’t have significant cognitive decline, you can easily teach well into your 70s if you want to.

I don’t perceive much ageism in the law either.

[Anonymous]

SORRY! Just rereading your post I see you aren’t into teaching.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SORRY! Just rereading your post I see you aren’t into teaching.

Thanks I haven’t completely ruled out teaching but it seems like so many burn out early.

[Anonymous]

Librarian. I got my degree many years ago and my program was at least 50% people starting a second career, and I doubt that's changed much. It's actually a field where going into it with almost any kind of experience in something else can be useful because so many libraries have special collections/branches where specific knowledge of an area is a real asset. People tend to think solely of public, and sometimes academic, libraries but a lot of large companies also have libraries and people with legal, accounting, business, medical, other backgrounds can find real niches. It's not a field to get rich in, but one can make a perfectly decent living and find a lot of job satisfaction. And my listservs are FULL of job openings.