For Immediate Release
February 13, 1996

SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING JOBS MAY BE GETTING SCARCER FOR PH.D. STUDENTS, NATIONAL STUDY SAYS

Landing the job of their choice may be getting harder for science and engineering doctoral students, a recent national study suggests. Prospects are reported as particularly bad for those aspiring to university research positions.

"As of 1992, of those university professors who retired, only one in three was replaced," said Georgia Institute of Technology Sociologist Dr. Mary Frank Fox, co-author of the new study. "Recent Ph.D. recipients in science and engineering are encountering an imbalance between the number of jobs available and the number of persons seeking those jobs."

Fox's study, sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), was presented February 13 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Baltimore, MD.

For their work, Fox and Georgia State University Economist Dr. Paula Stephan of the Policy Research Center looked at five fields of study: chemistry, computer science, electrical engineering, microbiology and physics.

Fox first surveyed 3,800 students (and received almost 2,400 responses) about their perceptions in regard to their career fields, then charted the data based on gender, field of study, and whether students preferred academic careers in research universities, academic careers in teaching colleges/universities or nonacademic careers in industry or business.

Stephan took the resulting data and explored how "reality-based" it was in terms of actual employment and salary levels, again looking at gender, field of study and the type of employment desired.

"To the extent that the reported prospects reflect reality, the gap between preferences and prospects has implications for students, for graduate programs and for national policy and goals in science and engineering education," Fox said.

On a scale of poor, fair, good or excellent, both male and female students saw their career prospects in research universities as less than good or no better than fair, particularly in physics for both sexes and in chemistry for women. At the same time, nearly half of the physics students surveyed preferred careers in this area.

Students also viewed their prospects as less than good in teaching colleges/universities, but they were slightly more optimistic about the nonacademic world.

As for gender differences, male students saw more opportunities in research universities, especially in chemistry, and in the nonacademic world, in computer science and physics. By contrast, more women compared to men believed their career prospects were in teaching colleges/universities, especially in electrical engineering.

As for what students prefer to do once they've earned their doctoral degrees, men were more likely than women to prefer academic careers in research universities, while women were more likely to prefer academic careers in teaching colleges/universities.

Preferences for nonacademic careers did not differ between men and women across fields.

When broken down by field of study, students of both sexes within microbiology and physics preferred jobs in research universities. But those in chemistry and electrical engineering showed stronger preference for nonacademic careers.

According to Fox, today's science and engineering doctoral students are facing three major economic changes that may hamper their career prospects. These include growing government deficits and their effects on federal funding for research and research training; the end of the Cold War and its effect on funding for scientific research tied to defense; and the lifting of the mandatory age for retirement and its effect on the replacement of scientific personnel.

Related Information:

"Women in Science and Engineering: Viewing Gender Differences from an Organizational Context," article in Research Horizons Magazine, Winter 1995.

RESEARCH NEWS AND PUBLICATIONS OFFICE
Georgia Institute of Technology
75 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 100
Atlanta, Georgia 30308

MEDIA RELATIONS CONTACTS:
John Toon (404-894-6986);
Internet: john.toon@edi.gatech.edu;
FAX: (404-894-4545)

RESEARCHER:
Dr. Mary Frank Fox, (404-894-1818); FAX: (404-894-0535)

WRITER: Amanda Crowell