Study Foresees Brain Drain in U.S. Science, Technology

The U.S. could lose its prominence in science and technology because of rising competition for foreign talent, a National Science Foundation report says.

“For many years we have benefited from minimal competition in the global science and engineering labor market, but attractive and competitive alternatives are now expanding around the world,” National Science Board Chairman Warren Washington said.

The report, released Tuesday, said increasing numbers of foreign-born scientists and engineers joined the U.S. scientific workforce in the 1990s. Immigrants made up 38% of science and engineering employees with doctorates and 29% of those with master’s degrees in 2000.

The science board said America risked losing the foreign scientists it relied on to fill technology jobs because of unclear immigration demands since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and because more countries were developing programs to keep their highly educated citizens.

America also lags other nations in the number of students majoring in science and engineering, according to the board. Twenty-four nations in 2000 awarded proportionally more science and engineering degrees than the U.S. did. The U.S. awarded 5.7 science degrees per 100 24-year-olds, compared with 13.2 per 100 in top-ranking Finland, the report said.

The board warned that a loss in the number of foreign-born scientists who wanted to work in the U.S. would hurt the nation’s technology sector at a time when many of its most-educated employees were nearing retirement.

“Many of those who entered the expanding science and engineering workforce in the 1960s and 1970s (the baby boom generation) are expected to retire in the next 20 years, and their children are not choosing careers in science and engineering in the same numbers as their parents,” the board said in comments accompanying the report.

The board noted that the number of jobs requiring scientific skills had increased steadily by 5% each year.