Dear Richard100,
Engineering, as you can imagine, is closely linked with economic
development. Israel, for example, has no natural resources (gas, oil,
etc.). It is small and has relatively big spending on security. Yet it
is considered one of the world's 20 biggest economies. The answer to
that is partially related to the growth of the hi-tech industry in
Israel, and especially to the number of engineers: "Israel’s
percentage of engineers, the world’s highest, with 135 engineers per
10,000 persons..." <http://www.israel.org/mfa/go.asp?MFAH01vu0>
Compared with other countries:
Israel 135
USA 70
Japan 65
Netherlands 53
Canada 38
Switzerland 35
Taiwan 34
UK 28
South Korea 25
Iceland 22
Singapore 19
<source http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Education/engineers.html >
As can be seen from the list, the numbers "don't lie". All of these
countries have growing economy, and some have actually enjoyed a
tremendous growth in the last few years, with the high-tech wave. "A
1992 study estimated that Africa counted only 20,000 scientists and
engineers, or 0.36 per cent of the world total. According to another
study, the region was responsible for only 0.8 per cent of total world
scientific publications. Its world share of patents is close to zero.
Parts of sub-Saharan Africa have only one scientist or engineer for
about every 10,000 population" <source:
http://www.unesco.org/bpi/scitech/facts.htm>. The number of engineers,
therefore, impacts the economy.
Technological developments (done by engineers) contribute to a
country’s economic well-being. "Canada’s innovation performance is
relatively weak compared to other G7 countries and smaller open
economies, like Finland and Sweden. And the overall innovation gap
between Canada and other comparator countries is getting wider,"
<source: http://www.conferenceboard.ca/press/2000/Innov2000newser.htm>
As for other social factors, engineering has also a social impact, but
here things might be different. Fir example, technological
developments improve living conditions for great populations, and
assist in solving strategic as well as everyday problems. However,
engineers can also develop weapons or torture mechanisms. There are
also no evidences that indicate on a correlation between the number of
engineers and social equality. Actually, from the countries listed
above, only few also list well on the "gini" scale, that examines
social equality vs. economic development.
However, the contribution of engineering to modern medicine, to
environmental science and to communications technologies cannot be
disregarded. With regard to environmental problems, for example, ""The
Environment Industry in Ontario has been growing steadily and needs an
increasing number of engineers trained for the changing world, where
pollution prevention is the preferred approach..."Gary Gallon,
President, Canadian Institute for Business and the Environment, as
quoted in <http://www.ecf.utoronto.ca/apsc/misc/enveng/enveng/Undergraduate_Programs.html>
Engineering impact social trends such as immigration. For example "the
total number of U.S. engineers born abroad has increased sharply over
recent decades", and they "have attained higher levels of education
than U.S.-born engineers". An NSF study concludes, that "The United
States has relied on people born outside the country for its
engineering workforce, but at about the same rate as the growth in the
occupation of engineering as a whole".
<http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/issuebrf/sib99327.htm>. "Brain Drain" is
an important problem in many Third World countries. There were
engineers, but they prefer to immigrate to richer countries in the
West. The result can be seen in the table above. Despite lack of
engineering graduates in the Unites States, there are 70 engineers per
10,000 ppeople - because 17% (1995 NSF data mentioned above) are born
abroad.
Engineering is even related - of course in an indirect way - to human
rights and democratisation. It has been found that in Syria, where
many engineers and other professionals have been arrested by the
regime, "During the 1980s, the Syrian economy suffered a lack of
trained professionals that was unquestionably exacerbated by the
detention of such large numbers of scientific personnel (Collello,
1988:114). Syria also experienced a period of economic stagnation
described as the "lost decade for development" (Perthes,
1992:37,57-8). Political repression reportedly contributed to this
stagnation and the decline in living standards that most Syrians
experienced. As one human rights organization commented, Syria's
prisons contain "a who's who of the nation's professional elite,
including hundreds of engineers, doctors and university professors"
(Middle East Watch, 1992c:7)" <all of this is quoted from
http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/syria/introduction.html> .
It is also related to the level of education. In a research conducted
in the State of Bavaria in Germany, it has been found that in a
district whereas there are a higher percentage of engineers among the
parents, the educational achievements of the children are high.
<http://www.oecd.org/EN/longabstract/0,,EN-longabstract-0-nodirectorate-no-28-9644-0,00.html>
I hope that answered your question, and showed many ways in which
engineering is related to society, politics and economy. If you need
clarifications, don't hesitate to ask. I'll be pleased to clarify the
answer before you rate it. I add here my search strategy, hoping it
might help you. I searched google for the "number of engineers" or the
"percentage of engineers" and added words such as economy,
development, growth. |
Clarification of Answer by
politicalguru-ga
on
07 Sep 2002 14:46 PDT
I found some information that links GDP with number of engineers, but
I cannot say that I found conclusive evidences that indicate on a
correlation. In Canada, the government in Alberta claims "Alberta has
the highest per capita number of engineers, 1 per every 100 Albertans;
Alberta has the highest productivity, as measured by GDP per capita,
of any province, 21% better than the national average"
<http://216.239.37.100/search?q=cache:DwadOVejzT4C:www3.gov.ab.ca/innsci/techfiles/advantage/aa_b.html+%22number+of+engineers%22+gdp&hl=en&ie=UTF-8>.
A report on Morgan Stanley's February 12, 2001 research division
report on Israel, published in the Website "Our Jerusalem"
<http://www.ourjerusalem.com/documents/story/docs20010215.htm> links
between GDP and number of engineers in Israel before the current
conflict (that began Oct 2000).
I recommend to you also to pay attention to how much is dedicated to R
& D (research and development). In Israel, for example, 2.5% of the
GDP was dedicated to R&D in those golden years before Oct. 2000
(here's a note on the engineers-economy-politics theory. The Israeli
economy deteriorated greatly in the last two years, as the consequent
of the conflict. The high number of engineers could not prevented
that...)
A study presented in a Conference in Manchaster, titled "Engineering
Curriculum Reforms to Meet Modern Challenges"
<http://induce.cc.umist.ac.uk/icee2002/programme/paperdetails.asp?paper_ID=255>
and presented by Dr. Ashraf Kassim, examines the same in Singapore:
high priority of education in GDP leads to big numbers of engineers
and to economic development.
In the United States, on the other hand, "Federal spending on research
and development as a share of the nation's GDP is lower now than it
was 15 years ago. In recent years, the number of engineers graduating
from our universities has decreased by more than 20 percent" (Charles
M. Vest and Norman R. Augustine, "Building the economic staircase"
_MIT News Office_ at
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/tt/2001/may16/oped.html, originally
published in the Washington Times on April 24). Thus, the dependency
on foreign born engineers.
I have found several pieces of data that might help you. Please note
that all aer Excell files:
1. Trends in Number of R&D Scientists and Engineers in Selected
Countries <http://www.nistep.go.jp/achiev/ftx/eng/rep066e/appendix/Chap_3/T3-1-03.xls>
2. Trends in Number of R&D Scientists and Engineers per 10,000
Population in Selected Countries
<http://www.nistep.go.jp/achiev/ftx/eng/rep066e/appendix/Chap_3/T3-1-04.xls>
3. Trends in Number of R&D Scientists and Engineers per Labor
Population in Selected Countries
<http://www.nistep.go.jp/achiev/ftx/eng/rep066e/appendix/Chap_3/T3-1-05.xls>
4. Number of R&D Scientists and Engineers by Sector in Selected
Countries (per 10,000 Population and per 1000 Labor Population)
<http://www.nistep.go.jp/achiev/ftx/eng/rep066e/appendix/Chap_3/T3-1-06.xls>
The source of this data, and where you can find more, is the site of
the Japanese National Institute of Science and Technology Policy
(NISTP), and part of their research "Science and Technology Indicators
: 2000 - A Systematic Analysis of Science and Technology Activities in
Japan", which can be read in full here
<http://www.nistep.go.jp/achiev/ftx/eng/rep066e/idx066e.html>
I hope this data helps. I add my current search strategy, which was
"number of engineers" gdp
(://www.google.com/search?q=%22number+of+engineers%22+gdp&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8).
Good luck.
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