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Michael S. Teitelbaum
Program Director
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, New York
NO SHORTAGE OF SHORTAGES
For much of the past 10-15 years, it has been a commonplace in many
academic and public advocacy settings to emphasize current or prospec-
tive "shortages" or "shortfalls" (or sometimes "inadequate skills") in the
U.S. science and engineering workforce. Beginning in the late 1980s, the
then leadership of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and of a few
top research universities argued that a "looming shortfall" of scientists
and engineers emerging between the mid-1980s and 2006 could be dis-
cerned.2 Their arguments were based upon projections produced by the
NSF's late Division of Policy Research and Analysis.3
When, only a few years later, it became apparent that the trend was in
the opposite direction to that of the forecasted "shortfall," i.e., a growing
surplus of scientists and engineers, the NSF as a whole was subjected to
the embarrassment of an investigation by the staff of the Subcommittee
on Investigations and Oversight of the House Committee on Science,
Space, and Technology, followed by an investigative hearing. In his open-
ing remarks at the latter, the subcommittee's chairman Rep. Howard
Wolpe stated that the "credibility of the [National Science] Foundation is
seriously damaged when it is so careless about its own product." The
subcommittee's ranking minority member (and now chairman of the full
Science Committee), Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, stated that the NSF
director's shortfall prediction, "delivered up in the context of growing
concerns about our nation's competitive standing, was the equivalent to
shouting 'Fire' in a crowded theater.... Today we will hear that number
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was based on very tenuous data and analysis.... In short, a mistake was
made, let's figure out how to avoid similar mistakes and then move on."4
Notwithstanding this unfortunate recent history, in September 2002
a new report issued by a year-old entity called Building Engineering
and Science Talent (BEST), established by the Council on Competitive-
ness to focus on admirable concerns about underrepresentation of
women and some minority groups in science and engineering, pointed
to a "Quiet Crisis" of insufficient production of scientists and engineers
in the U.S.5
Moreover, only one month earlier, the administrator of the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) testified before the House
Science Committee about NASA's hiring problems. He reported that
"[eiven utilizing all the tools at hand we are at a disadvantage when com-
peting with the private sector," but then went well beyond NASA's own
particular competitive problems to claim a general "lack of scientists and
engineers":
NASA is not alone in its search for enthusiastic and qualified employees.
Throughout the federal government, as well as the private sector, the chal-
lenge faced by a lack of scientists and engineers is real and is growing by
the day.
He pointed to NSF statistics showing that graduate enrollment in en-
gineering, physical and earth sciences, and math showed declines between
1993 and 2000, and from the mid-199Os to 2000, engineering and physics
doctorates declined by 15 percent and 22 percent, respectively.6
Thus it would appear that "shortages" or "shortfalls," whether cur-
rent or impending, have become the hardy perennials of public discourse
on these issues. Suffice it to say that there is no credible quantitative evi-
dence of such shortages. All available evidence suggests that overall labor
markets for scientists and engineers are relatively slack, with consider-
able variation by field and over time. This generalization is quite consis-
tent with the existence of very tight labor markets in some areas that are
new or growing rapidly (e.g., bioinformatics). Meanwhile, in other areas
there appear to be substantial surpluses, with special problems in previ-
ous boom sectors such as telecommunications, computing, software, etc.
This is not surprising, given that the broader U.S. economy is in a period
of economic downturn, and especially given the recent collapse of the
dot-coin bubble and the deep crises in the telecommunications industry.7
Labor market projections that go very far into the future are notoriously
problematic: no one can know what the U.S. economy and its science and
technology sectors will look like in 2012. Certainly there are no credible
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projections of future Shortages" on which sensible policy responses
might be based.
CONTRADICTORY CONCERNS
When concerns about current or forecast shortages are invoked, the
trends described typically are attributed to:
1. The failings of the U.S. K-12 education system, especially its inad-
equacies in science and mathematics.
2. A declining level of interest in such fields among U.S. students,
especially among the "best and brightest," in part because of the relative
difficulty of science and mathematics as fields of study.
3. Inadequate knowledge among younger U.S. cohorts of science and
engineering fields as careers, or in the alternative of the science and math
prerequisites required to pursue them at university level.
4. For women and minorities, a lack of role models in these fields,
suggesting to younger cohorts that such fields are "not for me."
Others with knowledge of science and engineering labor markets have
expressed equally energetic concerns about the increasingly unattractive
career experiences of newly minted scientists and (to a lesser extent) engi-
neers. Numerous reports and pronouncements in this direction have ema-
nated from scientific and engineering societies, from Congress, and from
the press. A prominent example is the report by a National Research
Council (NRC) committee chaired by Shirley Tilghman that pointed to
serious career problems facing young biomedical scientists in the second
half of the 1990s.8 Yet recent data reported by the National Institutes of
Health (NIH) indicate that key indicators of such career problems have
continued to deteriorate since then. Science magazine (4 October 2002) re-
ported as follows on an interview with Tilghman (now president of
Princeton University) about the new NIH data:
It's appalling. The data reviewed by the panel in 1994 looked "bad," but
compared to today, they actually look pretty goody
AN UNCONVENTIONAL PORTRAIT
The main message of this brief note is that the two apparently contra-
dictory concerns above are in fact closely linked to one another. To state
the message succinctly: those who are concerned about whether the production
of U.S. scientists and engineers is sufficient for national needs must pay serious
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attention to whether careers in science and engineering are attractive relative to
other career opportunities available to U.S. students.
As noted, this is not the conventional picture, but it is one that I be-
lieve warrants thoughtful assessment and discussion. It begins with the
acknowledgment that pursuit of the qualifications required for careers in
engineering and in science (especially) requires large personal invest-
ments. The direct financial costs of the higher education required for en-
try into such careers can be very high, depending in part on the family
financial circumstances of undergraduates (where financial aid is often
need based), whether the institution attended is private or public, whether
post-baccalaureate education is required, and, if so, whether such educa-
tion is lengthy and/or highly subsidized.
Engineering and science differ substantially in these characteristics.
For engineering, only the baccalaureate is normally required for entry into
the profession, for which educational subsidies are available for those in
financial need. In contrast, for professional careers in the sciences the con-
ventional entry-level degree is the Ph.D. and increasingly a subsequent
postdoc, the direct financial costs of which are typically heavily subsi-
dized by both government and institutions. Yet even with such subsidies,
the personal costs of the required Ph.D. can be quite high less in the
form of direct financial expenditures and more in the time required to
attain the qualifications needed.
The extreme case is that of the biosciences. In this large domain of
science, which comprises a large fraction of all Ph.D.'s awarded, an aver-
age of 10-12 years postbaccalaureate are now required for initial entry as
an independent professional: first a 7-8 year Ph.D. program, and then 2-5
years spent in postdoctoral status that has become a virtual requirement
for career initiation. In career terms, this implies that most young biosci-
entists are now unable to initiate their careers as full-fledged profession-
als until they are in their early thirties, and those in academic positions
are not generally eligible for tenure until their late thirties. As noted by
Wendy Baldwin, deputy director of Extramural Research for NIH, this is
a source of concern to NIH because of "the long-held observation that a
lot of people who do stunning work do it early in their careers."~° Such a
pattern, in which career initiation is delayed until one's thirties, is also a
source of inherent conflict with the social and biological patterns of mar-
riage and family-building.
There are also significant economic effects of this 10-12 year period in a
student or apprentice position: a substantial fraction of annual income that
would otherwise be earned must be forgone what economists term "op-
portunity costs." A recent study of this subject concludes that bioscientists
experience a "huge lifetime economic disadvantage": on the order of
$400,000 in earnings discounted at 3 percent compared to Ph.D. fields such
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Po SLOAN FOUNDATION
as engineering, and about $1 million in lifetime earnings compared with
medicine. When expected lifetime earnings of bioscientists are compared
with those of MBA recipients from the same university, the study estimated
a conservative lifetime difference in earnings of $1.0 million exclusive of
stock options, and perhaps double that if stock options are included.l2
In smaller scientific fields such as physics and chemistry, where times
to Ph.D. are shorter and lengthy postdocs less universal, the differentials
are smaller but still substantial. Given these significant personal invest-
ments of direct expenditures or forgone income, careers in science and
engineering must offer commensurate attractions relative to other career
paths available to U.S. students. The key words in the preceding sentence
are "relative to other career paths available to U.S. students." If U.S. stu-
dents perceive careers in science and engineering to be increasingly unat-
tractive in relative terms, they have numerous options for career choice in
other domains. College graduates who have demonstrated that they are
talented and interested in scientific and mathematical domains can choose
to go to medical school, law school, or business school, or they can enter
the workforce without graduate degrees.
The options available to most non-U.S. students (at least for those
from low-income countries) are profoundly different. Attendance at U.S.
medical or law schools is not a realistic opportunity, due to the very high
costs involved and the absence of subsidies. Meanwhile, it is well known
that science Ph.D. programs at many U.S. universities actively recruit and
subsidize graduate students from China, India, and elsewhere.
There are, of course, many significant noneconomic rewards (or "psy-
chic income") associated with careers in science and engineering: the won-
derful intellectual challenge of research and discovery; the life of the mind
in which fundamental puzzles of nature and the cosmos can be addressed;
the potential to develop exciting and useful new technologies. For many,
these attractions make science and engineering careers worthy of real sac-
rifices "callings" analogous to those of the religious ministry or artistic
expression. Happily, some fraction of talented U.S. students will decide
out of such personal values and commitments to pursue graduate degrees
and careers in science or engineering, even with full knowledge that the
career paths may be unattractive in relative terms.
Yet it is also true that others with strong scientific and mathematical
talents will decide that a better course for their lives would be law school,
business school, medical school, or other directions. The following simple
questions may usefully be posed regarding the relative attractiveness of
careers in science and engineering fields:
1. Does the career path offer a reasonable likelihood that those who
have made the sacrifices needed to attain the entry-level degree (B.S. in
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engineering, Ph.D. in science) will have predictable access to the "prac-
tice" of their chosen profession? In other words, is there known to be suf-
ficient demand in the labor market to provide reasonable career opportu-
nities for most newly qualified engineers and scientists?
2. Can those contemplating a career in science or engineering realisti-
cally aspire to a middle-class life style, roughly parallel (even if somewhat
less remunerative) to those experienced in other professions?
3. Is the trajectory of a career in science or engineering compatible
with a typical adult "life"? That is, does the career path fit realistically
with marriage, family-building, and the biological constraints of human
reproduction?
SUMMARY
There is a general consensus on the importance of attracting sig-
nificant numbers of outstanding young U.S. citizens to science/engi-
neering careers. Yet it appears that a variety of forces have conspired-
with no one intending this outcome to a relative deterioration of such
careers when compared with those available in medicine, law, and
business.
The main negative forces involved seem to differ for engineering
and for science. For prospective engineers, the primary deterrents at
present may be the visible instability of career paths and the increasing
exposure to competition with engineers from low-income countries who
are prepared to work for small fractions of prevailing U.S. living stan-
dards a situation not generally experienced by other professionals such
as lawyers and physicians. For would-be scientists (with considerable
variation by field), the deterrents seem to include the lengthening time
to degree and in postdoc/apprenticeship roles, coupled with increasing
uncertainty as to the possibility of being able to "practice" as a profes-
sional scientist once this lengthy postgraduate apprenticeship period has
been completed.
As previously noted, those who are concerned about whether the pro-
duction of U.S. scientists and engineers is sufficient for national needs
must pay serious attention to the relative attractiveness of careers in sci-
ence and engineering, when compared with other career opportunities
available to U.S. students. It would therefore be judicious to exercise cau-
tion in again invoking the hardy perennials of prospective "shortages" of
scientists and engineers, lest these prophecies prove to be self-fulfilling-
leading to actions that cause further deterioration in the relative attrac-
tiveness of such careers, thereby exacerbating the very problems they seek
to resolve.
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NOTES
iThe views expressed are those of the author, and not necessarily of the Alfred P. Sloan
Foundation.
2Accessible reports on these materials may be found in, e.g., Constance Holden, "Wanted:
675,000 Future Scientists and Engineers," Science, 30 June 1989, pp. 1536-1537; testimony of
Erich Bloch, director, National Science Foundation, before U.S. Senate, Committee on Com-
merce, Science and Transportation, Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space, Hear-
ing on Shortage of Engineers and Scientists, May 8, 1990, p. 25.
3This was a small staff office located within the NSF director's office. The 1992 congres-
sional investigation described below uncovered extensive documentary evidence, repro-
duced in the subcommittee report, that NSF's own professional experts on the science and
engineering workforce had expressed strong skepticism about the validity of the shortfall
projections.
4U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, Subcom-
mittee on Investigations and Oversight, Projecting Science and Engineering Personnel Require-
ments for the l990s: How Good Are the Numbers? Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing
Office, 1993, pp. 1-10.
5See Shirley Ann Jackson, The Quiet Crisis: Falling Short in Producing American Scientific and
Technical Talent, BEST (Building Engineering and Science Talent), Washington, DC, Septem-
ber 2002.
6"Hearing Details Concerns over Future of NASA's SAT Workforce." APS News, October
2002; pg. 7.
70n October 11, 2002, Lucent announced that a further $1 billion restructuring charge in
the quarter will involve cuts of 10,000 jobs during the current fiscal year, which ends in
September 2003. These cuts would bring Lucent employment down to 35,000, 22 percent
lower than its previously expected total of 45,000 at the end of calendar year 2002. The
company employed 106,000 in 2001. (Reuters News Wire, October 11, 2002~.
National Research Council, Committee on Dimensions, Causes, and Implicatons of Re-
cent Trends in the Careers of Life Scientists, Trends in the Early Careers of Life Scientists (Wash-
ington, DC: National Academy Press, 1998~.
9Erica Goldman and Eliot Marshall, "NIH Grantees: Where Have All The Young Ones
Gone?" Science, 298, 4 October 2002, p. 40.
i°Ibid., p. 40.
i~Plus deferred benefits such as pension contributions, which with tax-free accumulation
can become very significant sums over time.
i2Richard Freeman, Eric Weinstein, Elizabeth Marincola, Janet Rosenbaum, Frank
Solomon, "Careers and Rewards in Bio Sciences: The Disconnect between Scientific Progress
and Career Progression," American Society for Cell Biology, ms., September 2001, pp.10-12.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
career paths
