Career Change: How Well Are You Prepared?

Navigation: Main page

Author: Unknown

1. Dancers in the U.S. tend to be hilly educated. Seventy-five percent have post-secondary qualifications (compared to slightly more than 50 percent of the general population).
2. Although dancers expect to perform until well into their '40s, the reality is that on-average they stop dancing professionally in their early to mid-'30s.
3. Dancers say they know what to expect during a transition from performance, but in retrospect, they admit they were not well-prepared.
4. Thirty-five percent of dancers report they stopped dancing because of injuries.
5. The average cost of retraining is $27,000 in the U.S. and 43 percent of dancers plan to pay for it themselves.
6. It takes about seven years from the time a dancer first thinks about change until she feels established in a new career.
7. Most people have five to seven careers in a lifetime often, more than one concurrently.

SOURCE: ITEMS 1-5, "MAKING CHANGES: FACILITATING THE TRANSITION OF DANCERS TO POST-PERFORMANCE CAREERS," A STUDY BY WILLIAM J. BAUMOL, JOAN JEFFRI, AND DAVID THROSBY, 2004. FOR THE COMPLETE STUDY, GO TO WWW.TC.COLUMBIA.EDU/CENTERS/RCAC. ITEMS 6-7, LAUREN GORDON, CAREER TRANSITION FOR DANCERS.