Tomorrow's Talent by Steven D. Sanders, Ph.D., P.E., Southlake, Texas

Tomorrow's Talent - Jeff Brown's "Wanted: Civil Engineers" provides the often-stated summary of employment trends and required skill sets for civil engineers. These types of articles typically focus on broad macroeconomic supply-demand trends, the impacts of globalization, and the changing skill set requirements for future civil engineers.

A key demographic trend that has often been overlooked and is rarely debated is the declining middle class and the impact this has on engineers in general and the supply of engineers in particular. Of all the professions, engineering is the most middle class. Engineers historically have been the product of lower middle class to middle class families and communities- the sons and daughters of farmers, blue- collar manufacturing workers, and the practitioners of various trades. An interest in engineering provided these individuals with the opportunity to attend college. Engineering graduates probably provide more first-generation college graduates from a given family than any of the other professions. Engineering afforded individuals the opportunity to become an instant member of the middle class. Today it is unlikely that the sons and daughters of Wall Street investment bankers and attorneys will become civil engineers.

One impact of globalization has been the decline of the middle class and the creation of a rich-poor chasm in the United States. For the quarter century that followed World War II, income growth in America was fairly evenly spread. But within the past quarter century, the wealthy have been doing dramatically better than the less well off. Since 1979, median family incomes have risen by 18 percent, but the incomes of the top 1 percent have gone up by 200 percent. In 1970, according to the Census Bureau. the bottom fifth received 5.4 percent of America's total income and the richest fifth derived 40.9 percent.

Twenty-five years later, the share of the bottom fifth had fallen to 4.4 percent, but that of the top fifth had risen to 46.5 percent. This can be clearly illustrated by the difference in salary potential between investment banking and civil engineering. Both professions compete for the same type of student-superior interest and performance in math and science. Given the thousandfold difference in salary potential, it is easy to understand the daunting task of the engineering professions to attract these students.

The erosion of the middle class and the creation of a rich-poor stratification have broad implications for the supply of engineers in the United States. The available supply of engineers essentially must come from either the poorly prepared (educationally and economically) or the unwilling (unwilling to pass up the thousandfold salary potential and enter a profession with a lower status). The failure of the lower economic classes to move toward engineering is the most distressing. It would appear to be in the best interests of the nation and of individuals to view engineering as a profession that can move economically lower classes up the ladder. Poor preparation in mathematics and the sciences, coupled with the overwhelming burden of a college education (this period of decline of the middle class also corresponding to a period in which educational expenses increased at a rate greater than the over- all inflation rate), has not allowed this group to embrace engineering. The cur- rent system has two economic classes that cannot provide the nation adequate engineering manpower. Making up the deficit must come either from Bangalore in the form of offshoring or from a reliance on an ever-increasing number of immigrants. Both methods have major public policy ramifications for the United States.

This website was originally developed by Charles Camp for CIVL 1101.
This site is Maintained by the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Memphis.
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