Healthcare Edges Out Influencing as Young People’s Dream Career

Healthcare has edged past influencer work as the career young Americans most often say they want, a small but telling shift in how the next generation is weighing ambition against economic uncertainty.

PacSun and analytics firm GlobalData surveyed more than 6,000 respondents in the United States, ages 11 to 24, asking them to select the career paths they might pursue. Healthcare-related jobs attracted 19% of responses, narrowly ahead of influencers, YouTubers and content creators at 18.8%.

The margin is thin. The direction is what matters.

In PacSun’s 2025 survey, influencer careers ranked first with 22.2% of respondents, while medical professions drew 19.4%. A year later, interest in becoming a creator had slipped 3.4 percentage points, while healthcare moved into the lead.

The result comes as the creator economy grows more crowded and its income distribution becomes harder to ignore. CreatorIQ reported that the top 10% of creators captured 62% of total creator payments in 2025, up from 53% in 2023. The median creator earned $3,000 in the company’s payment data, far below the $11,400 average, a gap that underscores how heavily the business depends on a small group of breakout performers.

Healthcare offers a less glamorous proposition, but a more legible one. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects private healthcare and social assistance to be the fastest-growing major industry sector from 2025 through 2035. Nurse practitioners rank as the nation’s fastest-growing detailed occupation, with employment projected to rise 41% over that period.

That does not mean young people have abandoned online fame. Millions still see content creation as a route to independence, visibility and wealth without a conventional employer. But the survey suggests the fantasy is losing some of its shine as platform algorithms shift, brand deals concentrate among established names and the path to a dependable paycheck becomes harder to map.

For retailers such as PacSun, the findings also offer a window into changing customer identities. The same young shoppers who once aspired to build personal brands may increasingly be thinking about scrubs, credentials and work that survives the next algorithm update.