{"id":74513,"date":"2021-10-21T16:06:36","date_gmt":"2021-10-21T16:06:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/?post_type=career_profile&p=74513"},"modified":"2025-10-13T15:25:36","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T15:25:36","slug":"policy-careers-focused-on-other-pressing-global-issues","status":"publish","type":"career_profile","link":"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/career-reviews\/policy-careers-focused-on-other-pressing-global-issues\/","title":{"rendered":"Policy careers focused on other pressing global issues"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In a nutshell:<\/strong> There are many options for making progress on policy: you can research which policy proposals make the most sense for the long-term future, advocate for specific proposals, or do implementation. We expect that many policy careers focused on longtermism could be as impactful as our highest-priority career paths, but we haven’t learned enough about them to be confident about which are the most promising options or the best routes to entry. We do think that work on policy directly related to our current list of the most pressing problems<\/a> will have a particularly high impact.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Sometimes recommended \u2014 under-researched<\/h3>\n

This career is potentially high-impact, but we haven't yet researched it enough to recommend it confidently.\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Review status<\/h4>\n

Based on a shallow investigation 
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Why might longtermist-oriented policy careers be high impact?<\/h2>\n

There is likely a lot of policy work with the potential to positively affect the long-term future, and not all of it will fit into our longtermist priority paths of AI policy or biorisk policy. (We’ve written a separate article about policy work related to these particularly pressing problems<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Outside of these areas, we aren’t sure what might be best to aim for in policy. But working in an area that is plausibly important for safeguarding the long-term future seems like a promising way to build knowledge and career capital, so that you can judge later what policy interventions might be most promising for you to pursue.<\/p>\n

Possible areas include:<\/p>\n