Plugging the Leaks in the Scientific Workforce: Much More Needs to be Done to Reverse the High Rate of Attrition of both Men and Women Early in Their Scientific Careers‪.‬

In response to the dramatic decline in the number of U.S.-born men pursuing science and engineering degrees during the past 30 years, colleges and universities have accepted an unprecedented number of foreign students and have launched aggressive and effective programs aimed at recruiting and retaining underrepresented women and minorities. Since 1970, the number of bachelor's and doctoral degrees earned by women and minorities has grown significantly. Despite these efforts, however, the science workforce remains in danger. Although we have become more successful at keeping students in school, we have paid relatively little attention to the success and survival of science graduates--regardless of race or gender--where it really counts: in the work world. The numbers documenting occupational exit are striking and alarming. Data collected by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the 1980s (Survey of Natural and Social Scientists and Engineers, 1982-1989) reveal that roughly 8.6 percent of men and 17.4 percent of women left natural science and engineering jobs between 1982 and 1989. A study that follows the careers of men and women who graduated from a large public university between 1965 and 1990 (the basis of my book) further confirms this two-to-one ratio. For science graduates with an average of 12.5 years since the highest degree, 31.5 percent of the women who had started science careers and 15.5 percent of the men were not employed in science at the time of the survey. Estimates from more recent NSF surveys conducted in the 1990s (SESTAT 1993-1999) give similar trends for more recent graduates and further show that, for women at the Ph.D. level, occupational exit rates from the natural sciences and engineering are double the exit rates from the social sciences.