This paper presents estimates of the education and training requirements for detailed scientific and engineering occupations. GED and SVP levels are translated into yearly equivalents and the variances in these requirements are derived for the same occupation in different industries and for different occupations in the same industry. The changes in education and training requirements for scientists and engineers in the past decade are estimated and educational attainment in these occupations is compared to occupational requirements. Some implications of the findings presented here are briefly discussed and several serious deficiencies in U.S. occupational data are identified.
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References
1.
ScovilleJames G., Education and training requirements for occupations, Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. XLVIII: 4, November, 1966, p. 387.
2.
EckausR. S., Economic criteria for education and training, Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. XLVI: 2, May, 1964.
3.
ScovilleJames G., The Job Content of the U.S. Economy, 1940–1970. McGraw Hill, Inc., New York, 1969.
4.
U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Employment Security, U.S. Employment Service, Estimates of Worker Traits Requirements for 4,000 Jobs. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1956.
5.
Sales engineers were excluded because data on this occupation were not contained in the sources used in this study. Medical scientists were omitted because medical research is not very similar to the research and production activities in which most scientists and engineers are engaged and because they comprise less than four per cent of all scientists and engineers in industry.
6.
U.S. Department of Labor, Manpower Administration, Bureau of Employment Security. Selected Characteristics of Occupations (Physical Demands, Working Conditions, Training Time). A supplement to the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, Third edition. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1966, Appendix C.
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U.S. Department of Labor, Manpower Administration, U.S. Training and Employment Service. Conversion Table: Bureau of the Census-Dictionary of Occupational Titles, 1970.
8.
U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, U.S. Census of Population: 1960. Subject Reports, Occupation by Industry. Final Report PC (2)-7C. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1963.
9.
Scoville's estimates of GED and SVP for detailed scientific and engineering occupations were not published and these data were discarded by him along with the other detailed worksheets from this original study. The 1956 data used here are contained in Scoville [1], p. 388.
10.
BrownSanborn C.SchwartzBrian B., (eds.), Scientific Manpower, A Dilemma For Graduate Education, The M.I.T. Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1971, p. 48.
11.
BergIvar, Education and Jobs, The Great Training Robbery. Praeger Publishers, New York, 1970, p. 85.
12.
MillerAnn R., Occupations of the Labor Force According to the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, Statistical Evaluation Report No. 9, Washington, D.C.: Statistical Policy and Management Information Systems Division, Office of Management and Budget, Executive Office of the President, February, 1971.
13.
See Berg [11]. Berg's translations of GED and SVP were not used here because they are in terms of ranges of years for each level. Such a system does not lend itself as easily to the averaging process as does the Eckaus translation.
