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Policy

Populating The Lab

Demographics may get in the way of ensuring a strong chemistry contingent in the next 15 years

by By William J. Storck
March 6, 2006 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 84, Issue 10

In his State of the Union address in January, President George W. Bush, as every U.S. chemist undoubtedly knows by now, proposed an Advanced Energy Initiative that would put more research money into alternative energy sources such as solar and wind, zero-emissions coal-fired power plants, safe nuclear plants, and new ways of powering motor vehicles.

Bush also proposed a program to train 70,000 high school teachers to bolster advanced placement courses in mathematics and science and to "bring 30,000 math and science professionals to teach in classrooms and give early help to students who struggle with math, so they have a better chance at good high-wage jobs."

It is my fervent desire that laboratories in academia, government, and companies across the country see some hope in the President's proposals. Also, after 29 years of covering the industry, I believe that the people who say that basic research is underfunded and that not enough emphasis is put on science education in middle and high schools are right.

But I have to wonder if the President's proposals, especially those dealing with education, are a case of, if not too little, then perhaps too late.

In a companion paper to its "Science & Engineering Indicators 2004," which notes data trends in science and engineering, the National Science Board (NSB) says: "If the trends identified in Indicators 2004 continue undeterred, three things will happen. The number of jobs in the U.S. economy that require science and engineering will continue to grow; the number of U.S. citizens prepared for those jobs will, at best, be level; and the availability of people from other countries who have science and engineering training will decline, either because of limits imposed by U.S. security restrictions or because of intense global competition for people with those skills."

This is a real concern. In "Employment Outlook: 2004-24," published in the November 2005 issue of Monthly Labor Review, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) predicts the country will need 280,000 life scientists by 2014, a 48,000 increase over 2004, and 281,000 physical scientists, or 31,000 more than 10 years earlier. Factoring in the replacement of scientists retiring or leaving their jobs for other reasons, BLS estimates that the U.S. will need 103,000 new life scientists and new 94,000 physical scientists by 2014. The government estimates that the number of chemists must increase by just 6,000 during the 10-year period to 88,000, but combined with net replacements, 33,000 new chemists will be needed. And this does not include biochemists.

Can this demand be filled? Thomas L. Friedman, in his best-selling book "The World Is Flat," writes, "The generation of scientists and engineers who were motivated to go into science by the threat of Sputnik in 1957 and the inspiration of JFK are reaching their retirement years and are not being replaced in the numbers that they must be if an advanced economy like the United States is to remain at the head of the pack."

C&EN reported last year in its Salary & Employment Survey (C&EN, Aug. 1, 2005, page 41) that the median age of the more than 35,000 chemists responding to the annual ACS census in 2005 was 47.0 years. This is well ahead of the 41.3 years in 1990 and even the 44.7 years in 2000. The trend is clear: The chemical cohort is aging rapidly.

The first of the baby boomers are going to hit the traditional retirement age of 65 in just five years. For some time after that they will be leaving the workforce in increasing numbers, creating a huge demand load. In fact, the ACS survey shows that 72% of the respondents were born prior to 1966. So most were born during or before the period of amazing fecundity, which officially ended in 1964.

This is where the "perhaps too late" comes in. There has to be a lag time between announcing the President's education program and the time it may be fully implemented. You can't train 70,000 teachers overnight. Then there is a further lag between the time they begin to have some influence on students and the time the students receive their postsecondary degrees.

NSB notes that students who take advanced degrees in science make choices as early as middle school as to what math and science path they are going to pursue; thus, there can be a lag of 10-20 years between the time such students make their decisions and the time they enter the workforce. Add to that the time to gear up the President's programs and there's a big gap between the beginning retirement age for baby boomers and when any significant increase occurs in the number of graduating scientists.

Peter F. Drucker, the fabled management consultant, recognized early on that the labor force would be whipsawed by the combination of the baby boom with a subsequent decline in birth rates. In his 1980 book "Management Challenges for the 21st Century," Drucker writes, "There is nothing-except unprecedentedly massive immigration-that can prevent a sharp drop in the labor force of traditional age (i.e., below 60 or 65) in the developed world-in the United States after 2025 or so, in the rest of the developed world much later."

Friedman, in his book, however, is not so sanguine about immigration as a solution. He writes, 25 years after Drucker: "The simultaneous flattening and wiring of the world have made it easier for foreigners to innovate without having to emigrate. They can now do world-class work for world-class companies at very decent wages without ever having to leave home."

My opinion? I'm all for education. I'm all for immigration. I'm all for whatever it takes to keep the chemical enterprise in the U.S. going.

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