Characteristics of Doctoral Scientists and Engineers: 1999 will be published later this year on the World Wide Web (WWW) and in paper form. To provide data users with the most timely statistics possible, this set of selected tables is being made available while a more detailed set of tables both in electronic version and as a printed report are being prepared. These tables will appear in the biennial report with changes in format to conform to publication guidelines and practices. The statistics in the tables are final and will not be revised when released on the WWW unless problems are found that warrant revision.

This report will present data on the demographic and employment characteristics of the Nation's doctoral scientists and engineers from the Survey of Doctorate Recipients (SDR). The SDR is a longitudinal demographic survey of science and engineering doctorate holders conducted biennially since 1973. Current information on the supply and utilization of doctoral personnel in science and engineering reflects the results of the 1999 SDR, the fourteenth in a biennial series. The population of the 1999 SDR includes persons under the age of 76 who hold a doctorate in science or engineering from an U.S. institution. Each time the SDR is conducted, a sample of new doctorates from the annual census of research doctorate recipients, the Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED), is added and those individuals over age 75 are dropped.

This report will provide information on the number of scientists and engineers by demographic characteristics, such as citizenship, place of birth, field of degree, and employment-related characteristics, such as occupation, sector of employment, median salary, and various labor force rates. This set of early release tables provides a summary of labor force characteristics by doctorate fields and the forthcoming report will provide more detailed information including occupational field.

Initial data collection for the 1999 survey was by mail. Procedures included a prenotification letter, a first mailing, a reminder postcard, and follow up mailings. Nonrespondents to the mail questionnaire were followed up using computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) techniques. The instrument used in the phone follow-up was modified from the mail instrument to avoid difficulties encountered in administering some of the questions by phone, especially those (such as field of degree and field of occupation) that require individuals to select from an extensive list of possible responses. Information in the 1999 survey was collected for the week of April 15, 1999. Data collection took place between May and December 1999. The overall weighted response rate for the 1999 survey was 82 percent. As in most sample surveys, weighting was used to adjust for the effects of survey nonresponse and an imputation technique was used to compensate for item nonresponse. The statistics in this report are subject to both sampling and nonsampling error.

For further information, please contact:

Last Modified: Dec 22, 2000. Comments to srsweb@nsf.gov

National Science Foundation, Division of Science Resources Studies
Characteristics of Doctoral Scientists and Engineers: 1999 [Early Release Tables]
Arlington, VA [December, 2000]