New FASEB Factsheets Highlight NSF Scientific Workforce Data

By: Jacqueline Robinson-Hamm
Wednesday, May 25, 2022
National Science Foundation (NSF) conducts a multitude of surveys to assess demographics and other characteristics of current graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, as well as recent PhD recipients and doctorate recipients who are active members of the workforce. Monitoring characteristics of graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and doctorate recipients provides useful information about the supply of the nation’s science, engineering, and health trainees and labor force. Shifts in enrollment, funding and financial support, sector of work and more can be analyzed thanks to these NSF surveys that act as a census of current students and postdoctorates, graduating PhD recipients, and doctorate recipients.

FASEB collated data from NSF’s 2019 Survey of Earned Doctorates, Survey of Doctorate Recipients, Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering, as well as information provided in NSF’s Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering report and the Science and Engineering Indicators Labor Force report into themes of interest:
•    Female doctorate recipient representation, funding, and debt
•    Female PhD employment and salary in 2019
•    Doctorate recipient debt
•    International PhDs
•    Master’s degrees in science
•    Master’s degrees by field prior to doctorate degree in 2019
•    PhDs with a disability in 2019

These factsheets, available free for your use, highlight data on the skilled technical workforce in the United States in curated topics to aid ease of understanding. Additional FASEB factsheets on the scientific workforce, particularly focused on postdoctoral scholars, can be found here.