Supply and Demand for Scientists

As new graduates in science and engineering are learning, it is not as easy to get job offers as it was two or three years ago. However, as the number of graduates starts to fall with the drop in the college age population, employment opportunities are expected to expand, and many forecasters project significant shortages of EMPs—engineers, math and computer scientists, and physical scientists— through much of the next decade. The key to correct forecasting, of course, is to be able to anticipate both the economy, and the decisions of the administration and Congress on allocation of federal funds. Continued emphasis on the President's Strategic Defense Initiative means more demand for physicists, computer specialists, aeronautical engineers and materials scientists. A decision to rebuild the nation's infrastructure would create demand for civil engineers and architects, while more funding for health research and care for an aging population or AIDS patients would increase jobs for biomedical specialists. A flat or falling economy reduces demand for all workers; Unfortunately, we don't anticipate political decisions or economic trends very well. Although we speak of supply and demand as though they were actual, measurable numbers, this really is not true. Simplistically, we project supply as the number of new graduates expected, plus cur rent workers minus those who die or retire. Actually, supply always includes those serendipitous entrants from other occupations or training fields who move in when opportunity beckons, and excludes qualified graduates who choose or are forced to find employment else where. We have no real way to predict demand. We can examine man power needs to achieve particular objectives, but demand does not exist until funding is added to need, so that actual job openings occur. Companies' plans to expand or contract their workforce do not necessarily work out. For example, five years ago, no forecasters anticipated the downsizing that has occurred across the corporate sector this year and last, despite a continuing, if sluggish, rise in the economy. We cannot predict techno logical breakthroughs that will affect demand, perhaps bringing about large changes in the requirements for certain specialties. We only know that something unexpected will happen. We not only cannot predict the future with accuracy; we have no real measure of current balance between supply and demand. How ever, a few facts that affect the sup ply/demand equation are not in dispute. One is that the size of the 22 year old population from which we normally expect to draw our science and engineering baccalaureate graduates is dropping, and will continue to drop through 1997, by 26 percent altogether. Further, at present rates, only three fourths of those 22 years olds will graduate from high school, 44 percent will enter college, 7 percent will earn a bachelor's degree in science or engineering (S/E), 3 per cent will enter graduate school in an S/E field, and less than 0.5 per cent will earn an S/E doctorate. A new dimension of the problem is that the white male talent pool, from which we have traditionally drawn almost all of our scientists and engineers, is a decreasing fraction of both 22 year olds and of college graduates. In 1979, 46 per cent of all bachelor's graduates were white, non-Hispanic, U.S. males, as were 52 percent of all S/E graduates. By .1986, white U.S. males earned only 38 percent of bachelor's degrees, and 43 percent of S/E degrees. Women make up a significant part of that change, but the number of women going into S/ E fields also is dropping, and their proportion in these fields has stopped increasing. The total number of bachelor's degrees awarded should start down this year. The proportion of college graduates who choose to major in some science or engineering field, including the social sciences, has been remarkably stable for 33 years, ranging from 28 percent to 31 percent of all bachelor's graduates. However, among these fields, variation appears to respond to a marketplace for graduates in the field two to four years earlier, when student choices were being made. The proportion of EMP bachelor's degrees fell from 17 percent in 1960 to only 8 percent in 1976. The proportion has increased significantly since 1980, in response to the 1976-81 job market for new graduates in these fields. Even in 1986, however, the 15 percent figure was below that of the early six ties, and it probably will start down again in 1987, because of the softening market for EMP graduates beginning in 1983. The life sciences show a rapid increase beginning in 1972, largely because of the fast rise in the number of women entering college and completing a bachelor's degree. However, there is just as rapid a decrease after 1977, probably related to the job market for graduates in the early 1970s. Degrees in social and behavioral sciences followed the upward path of women's greater entry to college in the late sixties and early seventies, but fell rapidly after 1974 as women discovered better opportunities else where—principally in business ad ministration. Over the past decade, the employment of scientists and engineers has increased three times faster than total US employment, and twice as fast as total professional employment. The largest in-crease has been in the number of scientists and engineers engaged in research and development—up 60 percent from 1973 to 1985. To maintain technological competitiveness, this number must continue to increase. Our principal civilian competitor, Japan, has almost as many scientists and engineers employed in R&D per ten thousand population as we have, but almost none of its R&D bud gets or manpower is utilized for defense research, which takes up the majority of the federal U.S. R&D budget. Will we have enough scientists and engineers through the next decade to provide the productivity gains that can only be generated by technological innovation? We cannot be sure, but it seems very un likely. What is certain is that we will not have the best we could have if we don't begin at once to encourage and assist more girls and more minority youth to prepare for a career in one of these fields. Betty M. Vetter is executive director of the Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology. Her address is Suite 831, 1500 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20005.

Supply and Demand for Scientists

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