Maybe not--they may not even replace the shortfall in scientists and engineers in the OECD.
In December 2005, Vivek Wadhwa, a professor at Duke University, wrote an article that was published in Business Week. He was trying to allay fears of India and China as outsourcing monsters that would eat engineering jobs. Wadhwa said that Duke students were wondering if they should even enter the profession if the jobs would migrate to Asia. Wadhwa, Professor Gary Gereffi and some Duke students researched the topic. They published a report (large PDF) that may indeed lay some outsourcing fears to rest.
However, for those who are anticipating that a surge in Asian technical knowledge workers will step into the shoes of Western students who are abandoning technical fields of study, the report brings no comfort.
In China in 2004, 644,106 engineers graduated. However, only 351,537 were four-year degrees. Worse, due to differences in definitions, the latter figure includes motor mechanics and industrial technicians.
In India in 2004, a total of 215,000 engineering graduates were produced. However, only half (112,000) were four-year degrees--the remaining being 3 years.
In the US, a total of 70,000 engineers graduated with 4-year diplomas, a figure that rises to 222,325 if computer science graduates are included. Indeed, the number of science and engineering doctorate degrees awarded in the United States dropped by 7 percent from 1998 to 2001, according to a
separate National Science Foundation study made public this week. However, enrollment in science and engineering graduate programs rose in 1999 and 2000.
As I have not found historical data for China and India, I don't know if their output has not only doubled, but also taken over the load for the disappearing Western graduates--including the implied doubling that we are looking for. We do know that they have been pumping out engineers for quite a while, so their figures are unlikely to be doubling--just growing as fast as they can. So, this post isn't really finished. But it doesn't look as though the results will support the principal contention in Hypothesis 1, that human knowledge is doubling every five years.
More to follow.
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