Volume 78, Number 11
CENEAR 78 11 pp.
ISSN 0009-2347
Michael Heylin
C&EN Washington
As of the week of Oct. 12, 1999, the median salary of inexperienced 1998-99 Ph.D. chemistry graduates who had full-time permanent jobs was $61,000. For new master's degree chemists it was $42,000, and for new bachelor's degree chemists it was $30,000. This is the first time these medians have reached or exceeded the $60,000, $40,000, and $30,000 milestones, respectively.
Of all 1998-99 Ph.D. chemistry graduates, 43% had full-time jobs while 46% were on postdocs. Of all graduating bachelor's chemists, 36% had permanent full-time jobs and 44% were in graduate or professional school. Of master's graduates, 53% were fully employed and 31% were in graduate or professional school.
These are the bare-bones statistics from the latest version of the American Chemical Society's annual survey of the salaries and employment status of newly graduated chemists and chemical engineers. As always, it yields a mountain of unique data that offers an insightful snapshot of the state of the chemical profession and of those entering it.
This year, however, the survey does not yield many changes in direction or significant new trends. The results, in general, indicate continuation of the status quo for chemists.
This is not necessarily bad news. It means that median starting salaries for new chemists are continuing to rise—if at a slightly slower rate than they did in the previous two years. It also means that the overall employment situation for chemistry graduates, which has been improving since 1997, continues to be relatively strong.
The survey also indicates status quo for the traditionally stronger and more stable salary and employment situation for new chemical engineering graduates. Compared with chemistry graduates, a much higher percentage of new chemical engineers continue to move directly into full-time permanent jobs—for instance, 71% at the bachelor's degree level. Also, the substantial salary advantage traditionally enjoyed by chemical engineering graduates—a median of $47,000 for inexperienced bachelor's degree holders—remains as large as ever.
Starting Salaries for inexperienced chemistry graduates were up about 30% over the past five years, following much slower growth of the early '90s |
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| Note: Median starting salaries of graduates with full-time permanent employment and less that one year of technical work experienced prior to graduation; 1994 data for chemical engineers not available. Source: ACS starting salary surveys |
The survey is based on 6,328 usable responses to questionnaires delivered to 14,834 chemistry and chemical engineering graduates living in the U.S.--a response rate of almost 43%. Addresses for the chemists were provided, as in past surveys, by academic departments approved by the ACS Committee on Professional Training. The addresses of the new chemical engineers were requested from departments approved by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and the Engineer's Council for Professional Development. Of the responses, 4,594 were from chemists and 1,734 from chemical engineers.
The survey was supervised by senior analyst Mary W. Jordan of the ACS Department of Career Services. She also supervises ACS's annual salary and employment survey of its membership.
The doctoral portion of the ACS starting salary survey was part of a multidisciplinary effort carried out with other scientific societies. This joint program was initiated by the Commission on Professionals in Science & Technology in 1996. The commission, formerly known as the Scientific Manpower Commission, is a participating organization of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This year, as last, it involves ACS and four other societies.
C will report on the findings from the other disciplines when they become available. With a goal of getting reliable and strictly comparable data across disciplines, the societies involved use questionnaires that contain an identical set of core questions and they ask for data as of the same date. In the earlier surveys, salaries for chemistry and chemical engineering graduates have ranked in the midrange of the various disciplines ( C&EN, Nov. 15, 1999, page 47 ).
Table: Job situation for 1998-99 chemistry graduates holds on to improvement posted by year-ealier class with more jobs, fewer on postdocs
Salaries
The salaries reported in the ACS survey are not necessarily actual starting salaries. Many new chemistry graduates already have a full-time permanent job at the time of their graduation, and they may have had it for some time. For instance, 35% of 1998-99 master's, 20% of doctoral, and 10% of bachelor's chemistry degree graduates had three or more years of related professional experience prior to graduation.
Not surprisingly, such work has an impact on salary. The $42,000 median salary for inexperienced master's chemistry graduates—those with less than 12 months of work—is considerably shy of the $47,000 median for experienced graduates with three or more years of work already under their belt. The corresponding spread for bachelor's graduates is from $30,000 to $39,000, and for Ph.D.s it is from $61,000 to $64,000.
New chemical engineering graduates who are working are less likely to have three or more years of work experience—for instance, 11% at the doctoral level. And even when they do, it apparently has less impact on salary. The spread between inexperienced and experienced new Ph.D. graduates is only from $67,700 to $69,000.
Over the past 10 years, median salaries for inexperienced new chemistry graduates have risen, in current dollar terms, by average annual rates of 3.1% for bachelor's, 3.4% for master's, and 3.8% for Ph.D. degree graduates. This is more or less in line with an average increase in the Consumer Price Index of 3.2%.
But it has not been a smooth ride for chemists. Salaries faltered badly in the mid-1990s. For instance, the $45,000 median for inexperienced 1995-96 Ph.D. graduates was $5,000 down from the year-earlier class, and even $1,000 less than what it had been for the 1990-91 class. In the three years since the nadir of 1996, the median has moved up $9,000, $5,300, and $1,700 to reach the $61,000 in the latest survey.
Table: Better grades mean better pay for new graduates
Bachelor's and master's degree chemistry graduates show a similar, if less dramatic, salary pattern, with a mid-decade pause followed by solid growth since 1995-96.
The average annual growth in the median salaries of inexperienced chemical engineering graduates over the past decade has been 3.8% for all three degree levels. And growth has been relatively steady year to year throughout the decade.
Table: Bachelor's graduates certified by ACS are more likely to go to graduate school
The biggest factors that determine the salaries of inexperienced newly graduated chemists and chemical engineers—apart from the level of the degree—are the nature and size of the employer. For chemical engineers at the bachelor's degree level, grade point average also is a factor.
The median salary of $64,000 for inexperienced 1998-99 doctoral chemists with jobs in industry exceeds by 75% the median of $36,500 for their colleagues who chose entry-level positions in academia. For master's degree chemists, the differential is 49%—$44,000 compared with $29,500—and for bachelor's graduates 25%—$32,000 compared with $25,700. The medians for those with government or other jobs fall between but are substantially closer to the industry scale.
Table: Chemistry bachelor's graduates are more likely to continue studies than chemical engineers
The correlation between salary and size of employer is both strong and large. The range in median salaries for inexperienced chemistry graduates working for the smallest organizations (fewer than 50 employees) and the largest (more than 25,000 employees) is from $28,000 to $40,000 for bachelor's degree holders, and from $56,500 to $67,200 for Ph.D. graduates.
The median full-time salary of inexperienced 1998-99 chemical engineering graduates with an overall grade point average of A was $49,000. For those with a C average, it was $40,000. For chemistry graduates, the difference is much smaller—$31,500 compared with $29,300.
Gender is generally no longer a salary-determining factor. However, every year more detailed comparisons of male/female median salaries bring out some seeming anomalies in the expected salary equality.
This year, the overall analysis by gender of the median salaries of inexperienced 1998-99 graduates shows women slightly ahead of men for all chemical engineering degree levels and for Ph.D. chemists, equal for bachelor's degree chemists, but lower—$40,000 versus $44,000—for master's degree chemists.
Table: New male and female graduates have little difference in salaries
Further analysis indicates that part of the difference for master's degree chemists may be the result of relatively more women (21%) than men (9%) taking lower paying academic jobs. However, the median salary for women with industrial jobs ($42,800) was clearly lower than for men ($47,000). And women Ph.D.s with industrial jobs had a higher median salary than their male counterparts ($64,000 versus $62,500).
Table: Some degrees come late in life, but most are earned before 30 years of age
What all this seems to be saying is that, within the uncertainty of the polling and survey process, the median salaries of men and women chemistry and chemical engineering graduates are essentially equal. On the one hand, this denotes real progress: Women chemistry graduates were paid only 75% as much as their male colleagues 25 years ago. On the other hand, today's apparent near equality in initial salaries says nothing about the possible career and salary history of individual graduates in future years.
Employment status
The latest survey indicates that 1998-99 was a year of consolidation, of holding on to gains posted recently—particularly in 1997-98—in the employment situation for new chemists.
Table: New doctoral chemistry graduates earn twice that of their bachelor's degree colleagues
For instance, the number of new Ph.D. chemistry graduates with full-time permanent jobs, 43%, was slightly down from 44% a year earlier, but still well above 35% of the year before that. Similarly, those on postdocs held at 46%, well down from the unusually high 51% for 1996-97. The number of master's graduates with full-time permanent jobs moved up to 53% from 49% the previous year and from 46% in 1996-97.
Sidebar: Salary and employment reports
Over this three-year period, the employment situation for chemical engineers has not changed significantly, with an average of 71% of bachelor's degree graduates, about 64% of master's degree graduates, and 70% of Ph.D. degree graduates with full-time permanent jobs.
These high employment rates reflect the relatively low numbers of chemical engineering graduates, 15%, who continue with their formal education after receiving a bachelor's degree. This compares with the 44% of bachelor's degree chemistry graduates who go to graduate or professional school. Also, the number of new chemistry doctoral graduates on postdocs, 46%, compares with only 22% of new chemical engineering Ph.D.s.
Overall, 51% of new chemistry bachelor's graduates are not pursuing further education, either full or part time. For chemical engineering bachelor's graduates, it is 79%. These data indicate that the bachelor's chemical engineering degree is accepted more widely than is the bachelor's chemistry degree as a terminal, professional qualification.
Table: Non-U.S. students earn about 30% of doctoral degrees, 25% of master's degrees, and 5% of bachelor's degrees
Bachelor's chemistry graduates with a degree certified by ACS are somewhat more likely to go to graduate school, 47%, than those with an uncertified degree, 41%.
What's in a name? Apparently not a lot when it comes to bachelor's degree chemists. The employment status profiles for chemists with bachelor's of science and bachelor's of arts degrees do not vary greatly. However, those with B.A. degrees (27% of the total) are slightly less likely to have a full-time permanent job—33% compared with 37%.
Table: For new chemists, larger organizations pay higher salaries
Demographics
The graduating class of bachelor's chemists—the annual lifeblood of the chemistry profession—continues to be essentially one-half female: 49.0% for 1998-99 and 49.2% for 1997-98. At the master's level, the percentage of chemistry graduates who are women slipped a little this year to 44.1% from 50.4%. For the doctoral class, it slipped to 33.0% from 34.1%.
Women have penetrated less far into chemical engineering, with 40% of new bachelor's graduates, 24% of the master's class, and 20% of the Ph.D. degrees.
Asians, who make up 3.9% of the U.S. population, continue to play a large role in chemistry and chemical engineering. Asians make up 11.8% and 13.3%, respectively, of the 1998-99 undergraduate classes. At the advanced degree levels—where students from Asia on temporary visas boost their numbers further—they make up 24% of new chemistry doctoral graduates and an even higher 27% of new chemical engineering doctorates.
Blacks continue to make up about 4% of chemistry undergraduate classes and American Indians less than 1%. By ethnicity, about 5% are Hispanic.
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