INTRODUCTION
This report profiles the demographic and employment characteristics of doctorate-level scientists and engineers in the United States in a descriptive manner. The data presented in the report were collected through the 1995 Survey of Doctorate Recipients (SDR), twelfth in a series of surveys initiated in 1973 by the National Research Council (NRC) in response to the needs of the federal government for demographic and employment information on scientists and engineers trained at the doctoral level. This survey is sponsored by NSF, NIH, and DOE.
The purpose of the SDR, since its inception, has been to estimate the number of people holding research doctorates from U.S. institutions in science and engineering who reside in the United States and to characterize their demographic and employment patterns. The sampling frame for the SDR is the Doctorate Records File (DRF), a census of all research doctorates earned in the United States since 1920. The SDR sample for 1995 included 49,829 doctorate-level scientists and engineers, drawn from a population of 594,300. This report focuses on those doctorates who earned their degrees in a science or engineering field from a U.S. institution between January 1942 and June 1994 and were age 75 or younger and residing in the United States in April 1995. The estimated size of this population is 542,500.
This profile report is organized as follows: Chapter 1 describes the size and composition of the doctorate-level scientist and engineer population, including such characteristics as gender, race/ethnicity, citizenship, and age. Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 profile the employment status of these doctorates in 1995. Special attention is given to the academic sector. Chapter 4 focuses on postdoctoral appointments held by doctoral scientists and engineers, and Chapter 5 covers second jobs held. Chapter 6 presents data on changes in employment for the population since 1993. Chapter 7 presents data on articles published, papers presented at conferences, and inventions patented by doctoral scientists and engineers. Chapter 8 describes professional development activities.
Appendix A discusses survey methods and outcomes, including response rates, sampling and nonsampling errors, and weighting procedures. Appendix B contains a copy of the survey cover letter and questionnaire. Appendix C provides a description of terms used in the text and tables. Appendix D is a list of the Ph.D. fields covered by the SDR and aggregated into the broad groups shown in this report. Appendix E contains the occupation codes aggregated into broad groups.
