NATIONAL

80
Simon Field, Kathrin Hoeckel, Viktória Kis and Malgorzata Kuczera, “Learning for Jobs OECD Reviews
of Vocational Education and Training,” (OECD, 2009). Retrieved from: http://www.oecd.org/edu/
skills-beyond-school/43926141.pdf; Cappelli, “Skills Gaps, Skills Shortages, and Skills
Mismatch,” 47.
81
The unemployment rate for biomedical PhDs was around 2% in 1993 and 2010, and the rate of
working involuntarily out of field was around 3% in both periods. Indicators 2014, 3-39.
82
“The Disposable Academic,” The Economist, 16 December 2010. Retrieved from: http://www.
economist.com/node/17723223; Bruce Alberts, Marc Kirschner, Shirley Tilghman, and Harold
Varmus, “Rescuing US Biomedical Research from its Systemic Flaws,” Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 111, no. 16 (2014): 5773-5777. Retrieved
from: http://www.pnas.org/content/111/16/5773.full.pdf+html; Jordan Weissman, “The Ph.D Bust:
America’s Awful Market for Young Scientists – in 7 Charts,” The Atlantic, 20 February 2013. Retrieved
from: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/the-phd-bust-americas-awful-marketfor-young-scientists-in-7-charts/273339/;
National Institutes of Health, “Biomedical Research
Workforce Working Group Report,” (Bethesda, MD: NIH, 2012). Retrieved from: http://acd.od.nih.
gov/Biomedical_research_wgreport.pdf. An Internet search of “biomedical PhD glut” produces over
10,000 results ranging from government reports to articles in leading scientific and mainstream
media publications to blog posts.
83
“Biomedical Research Workforce Working Group Report,” 15.
84
As explained in the Biomedical Research Workforce Working Group Report, the one-year budget
appropriations process means that future NIH funding is very difficult to anticipate and is subject
to “booms” and “busts.” Demographer Michael Teitelbaum also explored this idea in Falling Behind,
206-216.
85
Indicators 2014, 3-39.
86
Teitelbaum, Falling Behind, 63-68; Mauricio Gomez Diaz, Navid Ghaffarzadegan, and Richard Larson,
“Unintended Effects of Changes in NIH Appropriations: Challenges for Biomedical Research Workforce
Development,” July 2012. Retrieved from: http://iseenetsim.net/community/connector/Zine/2012_
Summer/UnintendedEffectsofChanges.pdf.
87
Indicators 2014, Figure 5-12.
88
Indicators 2014, Figure 5-9.
89
See Indicators 2014, Figure 5-18 for employment by individuals with a doctoral degree in science,
engineering, or health in academic postdoctoral positions between 1973 and 2010. See Indicators
2014, Table 5-19 for reasons for accepting a postdoctoral appointment in 2008 and 2010.
90
In 1980, about 18% of NIH R01 grant recipients were 36 years of age or younger; in 2010 that
number was 3%. “Biomedical Research Workforce Working Group Report,” 29.
91
For NSF, see the “Report to the National Science Board on the National Science Foundation’s Merit
Review Process, Fiscal Year 2013. Retrieved from: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2014/nsb1432/nsb1432.
pdf; For NIH, see: NIH Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools website. Retrieved from:
http://report.nih.gov/NIHDatabook/Charts/Default.aspx?showm=Y&chartId=275&catId=2.
34 REVISITING THE STEM WORKFORCE