Full Citation
Title: 21st Century Statistics on the STEM Workforce
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2010
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Abstract: The coordinators of this workshop have asked me to review available data on people in U.S. science and technology. This is a mainly a matter of demography. Sources like biographies or even novels can be useful for this work, but no examination that fails to consider simple demographic facts is likely to adequately describe the entire STEM workforce. To assess data on people in these professions ("Science, Technology, Engineering, Math," for those who may be looking at this report who haven't seen the term "STEM" before), one can begin by establishing standards for good sources. No one source of STEM workforce data addresses all of the questions that the users of such information have posed. We do have at least one source that works well for most of them. For those seeking information on specific STEM occupations, professional societies can be very good sources of data. Large associations like IEEE-USA and the American Chemical Society have impressive statistical archives, including excellent time series, on their own people. These sources meet good academic standards. STEM has many of these associations, and while they vary considerably in their propensities to collect data, their membership records alone can be valuable, as can information on their sections (for example, IEEE is organized into nearly 40 sub-associations, such as its Computer Society). Other large professional organizations include ACM (the Association for Computing Machinery) and major engineering groups like ASME (the American Society of Mechanical Engineers), ASCE (the American Society of Civil Engineers), and NSPE (the National Society of Professional Engineers, an organization for those who have become licensed PEs). The most recent Directory of Engineering and Scientific Societies includes well over two thousand entries (copies may still be available from its publisher, AAES (the American Association of Engineering Societies at http://www.aaes.org). These sources may yield good information on particular kinds of STEM people. However, comparisons of different STEM occupations or measures of trends in the entire STEM workforce require more general sources.
Url: https://www.nsf.gov/sbe/sosp/workforce/ellis.pdf
User Submitted?: No
Authors: Ellis, R A
Publisher: Ellis Research Services
Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Education, Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Other
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