Understanding the Educational and Career Pathways of Engineers (2018) / Chapter Skim
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1 Characteristics of Engineers and the Engineering Workforce
1 Characteristics of Engineers and the Engineering Workforce
Pages 15-59
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From page 15... ...
This chapter begins with three definitions of the engineering labor force and describes the datasets used to characterize and measure the nation's engineering workforce.1 This is followed by an examination of the educational background, demographics, occupational and sectoral distributions, specific work activities, and career pathways of engineers using the three definitions. The chapter then reviews the economic returns to an engineering degree, the dynamics of the engineering labor market, and major forces, including technological developments and globalization, that shape the market and with it the educational and career pathways of engineers.
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The survey includes foreign-born workers and students with college degrees regardless of whether they were educated in the United States.7 It collects cross-section information every two to three years, with a subsample of respondents followed from one survey to the next, thus providing longitudinal data. The committee used both IPEDS and NSCG to evaluate engineering degree holders because IPEDS data provide information on the number of new engineering graduates each year (a measure of flow into engineering)
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From page 17... ...
Perhaps most notably, NSF categorizes "computer engineers – hardware," which in 2015 employed roughly 70,000, including 13,000 degreed computer scientists, as an engineering occupation, while categorizing "computer engineers – software," which employed approximately 592,000 in 2015, including 194,000 degreed engineers, as a computing occupation.14 Similarly, those involved in the direct supervision of engineers engaged in technical engineering work (i.e., "engineering managers") -- roughly 362,000 in 2015 including 208,000 degreed engineers -- are classified as working in "S&E management occupations."15 In addition, the line between engineering occupations and what NSF calls "engineering-related" occupations (e.g., engineering technologists and technicians,16 listed in appendix A1)
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From page 18... ...
Others employed in engineering occupations are those who earned a US college degree in a field other than engineering, foreign-born workers who earned a degree outside the United States, and even a significant fraction with no college degree or less than a four-year college degree. Because workers without a college degree are excluded from the most useful national datasets on engineers and engineering occupations, they are not included in the committee's analysis.17 The NSCG data show that in 2015 roughly 1.72 million college-educated individuals were employed in engineering occupations in the United States, accounting for 3.7 percent of all employed college-educated people in the US labor force that year.
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In fact, holders of business degrees represent 21 percent of those in engineering occupations without an engineering degree, a greater share than those with degrees in computing and mathematics or in the physical and related sciences. Demographics of Those in Engineering Occupations White and Asian males constitute the vast majority of those who work in engineering occupations (roughly 85 percent)
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-- just over 8 percent of the college-educated labor force in the United States.20 This section presents data both on holders of engineering degrees overall and on holders of engineering degrees in the labor force. There has been more than a decade-long rise in the number of engineering degrees awarded annually at all levels (see box 1-2)
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This disciplinary distribution of engineering degrees differs only slightly from the makeup of all BS engineering degree holders in the workforce in 2013 (discussed below)
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. The number of engineering master's d egrees awarded annually grew 69 percent over the same period, and that of doctoral degrees 58 percent.a By comparison, the number of degrees awarded annually in the related fields of mathematics/statistics and physics rose even more rapidly over the 13-year period, roughly 80 percent each, but from a much smaller base, accounting for only 21,000 and 6,000 degrees awarded in 2013 respectively.
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FIGURE 1-1 Primary pathways in engineering education. This figure includes all engineering degree holders regardless of work status.
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At the same time, foreign-born students on temporary visas have earned a significant fraction of engineering degrees awarded by US institutions, particularly at the master's and PhD levels, for several decades. Although women earned 57 percent of all bachelor's degrees and 60 percent of all master's degrees awarded in the United States in 2012, they earned only 19 percent of BS engineering degrees and 23 percent of MS engineer 21 The age restriction was used to account for the time needed to earn an additional degree.
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. As in the case of engineering occupations, the representation of women among engineering degree holders varies by field (table 1-4)
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Comparison of these numbers to the total US college degree population shows that the URM share of engineering degrees is 6–7 percent below their share of bachelor's and master's degrees in all subjects: In 2013 underrepresented minorities earned 21 percent of all bachelor's degrees and 19.6 percent of all master's degrees awarded in the United States (IPEDS)
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From page 27... ...
. Engineering field Total number of degrees Female share of bachelor's degrees Mechanical 22,267 11.99% Electrical 18,123 11.76% Civil 15,809 21.44% Other 12,497 24.11% Biomedical 38.93% Computer 9.91% Environmental 45.05% Chemical 8,917 32.27% Industrial 4,747 29.77% Aerospace 3,490 13.72% Materials 1,436 29.76% Total share of women among engineering BS degree earners 87,286 19.36% Source: IPEDS 2013.
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a The total of degrees earned excludes those earned by temporary residents because their race and ethnicity are not collected by IPEDS. FIGURE 1-6 Percentage of engineering degrees awarded annually to underrepresented minorities (African Americans, American Indians/Alaska Natives, and Hispanics of any race)
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From page 29... ...
Occupational Distribution of Degreed Engineers While degreed engineers account for over 80 percent of all workers employed in engineering occupations, nearly two thirds of degreed engineers work in engineering-proximate or non-engineering occupations: 65 percent of those employed with any engineering degree and 60 percent of those whose highest degree is in engineering. There are a wide variety of fields in which degreed engineers pursue careers in engineering-proximate or non-engineering occupations -- not only other scientific disciplines but also management, health care, law, business, education, fine arts, sales, and service.
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At the same time, civil engineering degree holders are most likely to work in engineering management occupations (23 percent) , whereas the shares of graduates of other subdisciplines range between 11 percent and 17 percent (NSCG 2013)
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Chapter 3 looks at gender disparities in greater detail. Employment of Degreed Engineers by Sector The NSCG data show that 69 percent of persons with a BS in engineering work in for-profit companies and about 12 percent are self-employed (incorporated or unincorporated)
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. Demographics of the Degreed Engineering Workforce White and Asian males constitute the vast majority of employed degreed engineers.
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experienced engineering degree completion rates ranging from roughly a third to little more than half the rates of the White and Asian students over years four through six (figure 1-10) although they still earned only 10 percent of engineering degrees (table 1-7)
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. Furthermore, underrepresented minorities and women are better represented in the overall population of employed engineering bachelor's degree holders than among those in narrowly defined engineering occupations, suggesting that underrepresented minorities and women are more likely to be working in non-engineering or engineering-proximate occupations than their male White and Asian counterparts.
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From page 35... ...
. Foreign-born workers with college degrees are overrepresented in the US engineering workforce compared to the general workforce.27 In 2013 the share of foreign-born engineering degree holders in the US workforce was 27 percent of those with a BS degree and 43 percent of those with an MS degree, and the share of foreignborn workers in engineering occupations was 22 percent, all of which are substantially higher than the 15 percent foreign-born share in the overall workforce that have a college degree (NSCG 2013)
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From page 36... ...
However, a closer look at the skills and knowledge engineering graduates acquire in their formal education and the tasks they perform on the job points to a very different conclusion. Degreed Engineers Using Engineering Knowledge and Skills on the Job In 2000 ABET (formerly known as the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology)
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From page 37... ...
In addition, each accredited department/disciplinary field of engineering requires its graduates to master technical knowledge and skills that are unique to the discipline, although there are no program-specific criteria for accredited "general engineering" programs. Given the breadth and depth of technical knowledge and skills and the associated portfolio of professional skills expected of engineering graduates when they enter the workforce, it seems unlikely that a graduate's "engineering skills" would not be put to productive use in non-engineering occupations.
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have an electrical engineering degree and work in computing occupations (bringing the total to 60.8 percent of degreed engineers)
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are the most common specific tasks for BS engineering degree holders and workers in engineering occupations. Engineering MS degree holders report performing very similar tasks to BS degree holders.
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Percentages are of the population in each column. Workers in engineering BS-degreed engineers in BS-degreed engineers in occupations, with or without any occupation engineering occupations an engineering degree Report that their principal activity is: Most common Othera (28%)
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1. Working in engineering: For both cohorts, three quarters of the degree holders that were working in engineering occupations in 2003 were still working in engineering occupations five years later.
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THE ECONOMIC RETURNS TO AN ENGINEERING DEGREE Salary and Lifetime Earnings Workers with engineering degrees generally receive comparatively high lifetime earnings (Hershbein and Kearney 2014)
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The median lifetime earnings for those working full time, as calculated on the Brookings Institution's Hamilton Project (with later years' earnings discounted to take into account the shorter duration of their investment) are $2.18 million, $2.09 million, and $1.91 million respectively for the three engineering degrees, versus $1.34 million for all other majors, and the lifetime earnings of the engineers exceed those of all other graduates combined at every percentile of the distribution (figure 1-16)
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From page 44... ...
Career Pathways from Engineering Career Pathways to Engineering Occupations: Older Cohort Occupations: Older Cohort 2003 2008 2003 2008 39.9% 36.8% 39.9% 36.8% ENGINEERING ENGINEERING ENGINEERING ENGINEERING OCCUPATION OCCUPATION OCCUPATION OCCUPATION 75% 25% 19% COMPUTING 16.6% COMPUTING 16.6% 17.7% COMPUTING 17.7% COMPUTING ENGINEERING RELATED 3% ENGINEERING RELATED 3% 2.4% ENGINEERING RELATED 2.4% ENGINEERING RELATED 10.8% ENGINEERING MGMT ENGINEERING MGMT 15.5% 10.8% ENGINEERING MGMT ENGINEERING MGMT 15.5% 3.7% OTHER S&E 3.7% OTHER S&E OTHER S&E 4.7% OTHER S&E 4.7% 18.4% OTHER NON-S&E 18.4% OTHER NON-S&E OTHER NON-S&E 17.5% OTHER NON-S&E 17.5% 7.1% NON-EMPLOYED NON-EMPLOYED 5.9% 7.1% NON-EMPLOYED NON-EMPLOYED 5.9% FIGURE 1-14 Pathways of engineering graduates with a bachelor's or master's degree (earned in 1986–1993) , showing those 1 moving from and to engineering occupations between 2003 and 2008.
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FIGURE 1-16 Lifetime earnings for those with bachelor's degrees in electrical, mechanical, and civil engineering compared to all majors, in millions of 2014 dollars by percentile of earnings distribution. From the Hamilton Project website, based on data from the American Community Survey.
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Source: http://hamiltonproject.org/earnings_by_major, accessed August 17, 2018. FIGURE 1-18 Median lifetime earnings for the top-paying 15 majors, in millions of dollars, 2014.
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. Unemployment Rate of Engineers The unemployment rate of engineering degree holders is lower than that of other college-educated workers.
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Plotted on a graph, these cycles of adjustments to supply and demand and corresponding adjustments in price/engineering salaries display a cobweb pattern as the market seeks a new equilibrium. The cobweb effect in the engineering labor market was initially demonstrated by studies of the market's response to the creation of NASA, which rapidly increased the demand for engineers and led to higher wages and higher employment for engineers, fed by increased enrollment in engineering degree programs (Freeman 1976; see also Ryoo and Rosen 2004)
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From page 49... ...
Yet national survey–based datasets provide only limited insight into the dynamics of the larger market for engineering skills and knowledge, its connections to the educational enterprise, and broader implications. Survey data provide only periodic snapshots of where the stock of engineering degree holders are employed, the tasks they perform, or the educational background and job tasks of those in various engineering occupations.
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MAJOR FORCES SHAPING DEMAND FOR ENGINEERING LABOR AND SKILLS The following sections describe six major forces that influence the supply and demand for engineers and particular engineering skills: technological developments, changing societal priorities, expanding global trade, skilled immigration, growing engineering capacity in developing economies, and the globalization of engineering work. Technological Development and Changing Societal Priorities One factor that affects demand in all labor markets is technological development, which influences and is influenced by society's priorities.
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From page 51... ...
While the paper by Zolas and colleagues reports a pilot study that is not directly oriented toward the engineering workforce, the first-of-their-type analyses of these linked administrative data clearly demon strate the potential value of such resources in studies of engineering training and workforce outcomes. The paper by Hughes and colleagues in appendix E identifies four areas on which administrative data can shed light.
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From page 52... ...
for an individual." The fourth area is the economic impacts of the engineering workforce. In this case, "the same… administrative data sources that enable researchers to study engineering employment dynamics also enable them to examine the economic impact of engineering graduates.
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From page 53... ...
. On balance, the empirical literature discussed in box 1-5 suggests that skilled immigrants collectively increase innovation, which increases technological developments and growth in GDP per capita in the United States.41 Advances Abroad Two final international factors that have gained widespread US attention are increases abroad in the number of engineering graduates and rising investment by developing countries in research and development (OECD 2008)
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From page 54... ...
The fact that engineering pathways and the composition of the engineering workforce evolve in response to changes in the labor market and the underlying forces that shape it -- be they technological, economic, societal, or institutional -- is not new. Throughout history the knowledge, skills, and work of those trained as engineers have evolved continuously in response to changes in societal needs and advances in science and technology.
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Engineering's Diversity Challenge • White and Asian males constitute the vast majority of employed degreed engineers and those who work in engineering occupations. Women and most of the nation's minority populations remain severely underrepresented among engineering degree earners and in the engineering workforce.
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Over 25 percent of BS engineering degree holders report that management is their principal task, and about two thirds of engineers defined by degree or occupation report spending at least 10 percent of their time on management. • The design of equipment, processes, structures, and/or models is the principal task of 27 percent of BS-degreed engineers who work in engineering occupations and of 13 percent of employed BS engineering degree holders regardless of their occupation.
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who have skills and knowledge needed in engineering occupations. • BS engineering graduates on average have the highest annual compensation and lifelong earnings of all bachelor's degree holders; the highest mean wages whether working in engineering, engineering-proximate, or non-engineering occupations; and the lowest unemployment rates of college degree holders.
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2011. Dynamics of Engineering Labor Markets: Petroleum Engineering and Responsive Supply.
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2004. The engineering labor market.
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