Projections Of Science And Engineering Doctorate Supply And Utilization

This report provides projections of the supply and utilization of doctoral scientists and engineers (S/E) through 1987. The study, the fourth in a series that began in 1969, uses a new approach that explicitly incorporates the effect of the domestic market for highly trained S/E personnel upon the numbers of S/E doctorates awarded by American universities. In this improved approach, market conditions are assumed to affect the projected proportions of both S/E baccalaureates who enter graduate school and graduate enrollees who earn doctorates. The projected 1982 and 1987 supplies of doctorates in each broad S/E field are the summation of three components. The first is composed of those members of the 1977 doctoral labor force who are projected to be still employed at the later dates. The second component, about equal in size to the first, is doctorate recipients for 1977 through 1982 and 1983 through 1987. Before their inclusion in the projected supply, these estimates of future degree-recipients are adjusted to reflect the emigration of non-U.S. residents and any field-switching of the remaining new doctorates as they take their first jobs after graduation. The third, and smallest, component is the estimated number of future Ph.D. immigrants.