ACS N E W S
Chemical profession is changing New interspecialty fields are emerging which cut across traditional boundary lines The character of the chemical profession appears to be undergoing marked changes. Fewer and fewer chemists regard themselves as practicing in the classically defined chemistry fields of analytical, inorganic, organic, and physical chemistry. In their place are emerging new interspecialty fields such as polymer chemistry and physical-organic chemistry which cut across traditional boundary lines. Also, growing numbers of chemists are finding active work outlets on the fringes of technical practice in such activities as chemical education, marketing, and patents. These are the highlights of observations made by ACS on data from more than 80,000 chemistry professionals obtained for the 1968 National Register of Scientific and Technical Personnel, a project of the National Science Foundation. Last year, the Society made a salary study on about half of these respondents (C&EN, Oct. 21, 1968, page 60). This year, the National Science Foundation released statistics to ACS on the field choices of all chemists and chemical engineer respondents. Overall, the field of organic chemistry continued the apparent decline in number of practitioners first found for it at the beginning of the 1960's. In 1962, about 45% of chemists were in this field. Last year, the proportion was down to 37%. Similarly, analytical chemistry decreased
its representation over the six-year span from 16 to 12%. Elsewhere, changes were less marked. Throughout the decade, two exceptions to the decline in the traditional field populations stood out. One was biochemistry, which grew steadily from 10% in 1962 to more than 127c last year. A second was the "other" category which accounted for only 2.6% of chemistry practitioners in 1962, but zoomed to 16.2% by 1968. In large part, this may be attributed to the design of the questionnaire used by NSF for its biennial register survey. In earlier years, little opportunity was given to the nonbench chemist to identify his field of activity. By 1966, some better delineations, such as abstracting, education, history of chemistry, and the like, began to appear. In 1968, the "other category" was given still more prominence. So any apparent changes in the character of the chemical profession may be due in large part to a better effort to identify its true composition by NSF. Academic degrees. If the field choices of chemists are changing this decade, their academic degree qualifications are not. In 1968, as for most other years since 1962, ACS found that the distribution of bachelors, masters, and doctors followed a general 40-20-40% balance. Probably the
Distribution of chemists by field 1962
Organic
Analytical Inorganic Organic Physical Biochemistry Agricultural and food Other
16.0% 7.1 44.6 13.2 10.1 6.5 2.6
1964 15.5% 9.1 42.5 14.0 11.2 5.7 2.0
1966 16.4% 6.6 39.9 13.7 12.3 5.1 6.0
1968 11.8% 5.5 36.7 11.9 12.4 5.5 16.2
1966 0.8% 41.0 18.7 38.7 0.7
1968 0.2% 40.2 20.0 38.8 0.8
Academic attainment of chemists Chemist Population by Specialty alty Less than bachelors Bachelors Masters Doctors (Ph.D., D.Sc.) Professional medical Other Biochemistry Physical
1964
1966
Changes in the profession 1962-68 102 C&EN JULY 14, 1969
38
1962
1964
0.7% 40.9 19.2 38.5 0.7
1.0% 41.6 19.2 37.6 0.6
Distribution of chemists by degree in 1968* Field Analytical Inorganic Organic Physical Biochemistry Agricultural Food science and technology Chemical engineering Other :
Excludes nondegreed individuals.
B.S. 55.6% 39.8 45.5 26.5 18.8 54.9 52.2 58.8 40.0
M.S. 22.3% 18.8 18.6 16.0 12.5 19.2 20.7 24.1 31.0
Ph.D. 22.1% 42.3 35.8 57.5 68.7 25.9 27.1 17.1 29.0
Analytical chemistry
Estimated number of
most marked change occurred in the proportion of chemists holding less than a baccalaureate. While small in total, this declined from 0.8% in 1966 to 0.2% last year, probably indicating that it is becoming much harder to win professional identification as a chemist without a degree. Within the various fields of specialty, marked departures from the overall distribution of academic degrees were found in the NSF data. Nearly 70% of biochemists, for example, held doctorates in 1968, whereas only 22% of analytical chemists and 17% of chemical engineers were at this level. Conversely, nearly 607c of chemical engineers and 55% of analytical chemists held bachelor's degrees. Only 19% of biochemists did so, however. The distribution of master's degrees for all major fields hovered closely around the 20% figure. Fields and subfields. Within the major classical fields of chemistry, certain subfield specialties predominated in 1968, just as in prior years. More than one fourth of analytical chemists, for example, were active in the two specialties of absorption spectroscopy and chromatographic analysis. About one third of physical chemists were involved in catalysis and surface chemistry, electrochemistry, or polymers. Conversely, few inorganic chemists were found to be concentrated in a small cluster of specialties, although 22.6% reported in coordination compounds and inorganic synthesis. Also, the greatest concentration of organic chemists, only 10.2%, was in the plastics field, followed closely by polymers, 9.3%. Of all fields, organic was probably the most evenly distributed among a large range of specialties prepared for the NSF questionnaire by the ACS Division of Organic Chemistry. In biochemistry, a whopping 54.8% of respondents placed themselves in the "other" category. Clearly, ancillary specialties in the biochemical field, other than the 20 agreed to by the Division of Biological Chemistry, are occupying many of these practitioners. The most discernible change in the activities of chemical engineers was in pilot plant development. In 1966, about 10% of all engineers, estimated at 5000, indicated that they were in this line of work. Last year, the figures were only 3.5% and 1800 individuals. In part, this may be due to the inclusion in 1968 of a new subfield, petroleum processes, which was checked off by 5.87c of respondents, representing about 2900 U.S. chemical engineers. The study. This analysis of the chemical profession was based upon the first specialty choices of chemists and chemical engineers reporting to the 1968 National Register of Scientific and Technical Personnel. A total of 80,614 individuals—71,401 chemists and 9213 chemical engineers —were included in the data summaries given ACS by NSF. ACS scaled these figures upwards to match the estimates provided by the Department of Labor on the total chemist and chemical engineering population of the U.S. For 1968, Labor roughly estimated that there were 122,000 chemists and 50,000 chemical engineers. A staff report of the Office of Professional
Relations.
Specialty
Per cent
chemists
Absorption spectroscopy Biochemical analysis Chemical microscopy Chromatographic analysis Clinical chemistry Distillation analysis Electrochemical analysis Electron microscopy Extraction analysis Fluorimetry, phosphorimetry, and infrared and Raman spectroscopy Gas analysis Gravimetry Magnetic resonance spectroscopy Mass spectroscopy Microchemical analysis Nucleonics and radiochemistry Neutron activation Pharmaceutical analysis Spectrochemical analysis Other Total
11.0% 3.7 0.7 16.0 5.5 0.5 5.2 0.7 1.0 2.3
1600 500 100 2300 800 100 800 100 200 300
2.0 4.8 2.4 3.5 3.0 3.5 1.0 9.3 9.2 14.7
Inorganic chemistry
300 700 300 500 400 500 200 1300 1300 2100 14,400 Estimated number of
Specialty
Per cent
chemists
Actinide chemistry Boron and silicon compounds; asbestos, clay, glass, etc. Carbon, germanium, lead, tin; includes graphite, etc. Coordination compounds "Electron deficient" compounds; boron hydrides, metal alkyls, etc. Electropositive elements and their compounds (alkalies and alkaline earths, building products, etc.) Equilibrium and thermodynamic relationships in inorganic systems Hydrogen and the hydrides; highenergy fuels Inner transition elements Inorganic materials useful as solid-state electronic devices; semiconductors, etc. Inorganic polymers Mechanism of inorganic reactions; reaction kinetics Nonmetals; halogen, oxygen, and nitrogen families, high-energy oxidizers Nuclear chemistry and radiochemistry Organometallic compounds Solutions and solvent theory; nonbacteriological aspects of water chemistry Structure of inorganic compounds; crystallography, spectroscopy, etc. Synthesis of inorganic materials Synthetic or transuranium elements Theoretical inorganic chemistry; ligand field theory, molecular orbital theory, ionic models, theory of metals, etc. Transition elements OtherTotal
2.0% 7.6
100 500
3.6
200
13.5 2.4
900 200
2.9
200
2.8
200
1.0
100
0.6 7.9
