Assessing and Responding to the Growth of Computer Science Undergraduate Enrollments (2018) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix C: Commissioned Paper: Workforce Trends in Computer Science
Appendix C: Commissioned Paper: Workforce Trends in Computer Science
Pages 171-184
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From page 171... ...
has focused on how wages, employment, and educational decisions adjust to changes in demand for scientists and engineers. This work emphasized the notion that the supply of scientists and engineers is likely to be inelastic in the short run, as growth in supply requires expansion in postsecondary degree attainment in scientific fields, while supply is quite elastic over a longer time horizon.
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From page 172... ...
The sharpest growth in employment occurred during the latter half of the 1990s after the introduction of the Internet for commercial purposes, which boosted productivity and increased demand for workers in computer science.1 1 Throughout this paper we will refer to those working in computer science as those who show oc cupational codes of "Computer Systems Analysts and Computer Scientists" and "Computer Software Developers."
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From page 173... ...
This IT boom was followed by the dot-com bust, which created significant job losses among computer scientists but did not stop the long-term growth of computer science among other college occupations. If we focus on younger workers age 23 to 29, there is employment
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FIGURE C.3 Relative median annual wage by age group. SOURCE: CPS for median annual earnings by occupation (computer science, engineering, and college workers)
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. SUPPLY-SIDE ADJUSTMENT The increase of the computer science workforce as a share of total college graduates for the past 20 years can be attributed to three main sources: new graduates with degrees in computer science joining the labor market, workers from other fields who are drawn into computer science, and foreign workers who migrate to the United States to work as computer scientists.
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From page 176... ...
Some simple calculations using earnings and degrees suggest that college degrees seem to be responding less to changes in earnings for young workers when compared to what they did during the IT boom of the 1990s. Between 1995 and 2000 median wages of computer scientists relative to all college graduates increased by 14.1 percent, while relative degree attainment in computer science in the same period increased by 44 percent.
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From page 177... ...
APPENDIX C 177 FIGURE C.5 Number of bachelor's degrees by field. SOURCE: Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS)
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From page 178... ...
, a larger number of college graduates end up working as computer scientists than those who obtained undergraduate degrees in computer science.4 This trend was re 4 We emphasize that here we compare degrees awarded to the number of individuals working in the field. Even when these numbers line up, this does not imply that all of those with computer science degrees work as computer scientists or that all those working as computer scientists have undergraduate degrees in the field.
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From page 179... ...
in computer science as those who state the following degree fields in the ACS: "Computer and Information Systems," "Computer Programming and Data Processing," "Computer Science," "Information Sciences," "Computer Information Management," and "Computer Networking and Telecommunications."
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. TABLE C.2 Occupation for Those Who Obtained a Computer Science Bachelor's Degree (2009-2014)
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The natural interpretation of the premium such individuals earn is that they are more productive either because of the skills they possess or because of the jobs they are in. While a computer science or information sciences degree does earn a premium with r espect to non-STEM degrees, other degree holders such as computer information management earn somewhat less, on average, than non-STEM degree holders who work as computer scientists.
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From page 182... ...
We carry out a similar analysis by looking at the earnings of those who have degrees in computer science and look at the average returns of working in a given occupation compared to non-STEM occupations. Table C.4 shows that those with degrees in computer science who work as software developers or engineers earn substantial premiums over those working in other occupations.
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SOURCE: American Community Survey, years 2009-2014.
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From page 184... ...
In this paper we look into the labor market for computer scientists and find that, since 2006, workers in this occupation experienced a recovery both in employment and earnings that keeps going until today, although at a slower pace than the increase in demand observed in the late 1990s due to the IT boom. When demand for computer scientists increases, supply can adjust through three different margins: a larger inflow of immigrants who work as computer scientists, a larger rate of enrollment in computer science undergraduate majors, and drawing workers that majored in other fields to work as computer scientists.
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