spends about 20 percent of its sep- 

 arately budgeted R&D on engineer- 

 ing, compared to 14 percent in the 

 United States. 



s/e degree 

 production 



The higher education system is by 

 definition responsible for advanced 

 education as well as research. This 

 education is closely coupled with re- 

 search, especially at the postgrad- 

 uate level; moreover, the output of 

 trained scientists and engineers is a 

 significant contribution to a nation's 

 S/T capabilities. 



Japan's undergraduate education 

 system is one of the largest in the 

 world in proportion to the size of its 

 college-age population. In 1985, the 

 Japanese ratio of all first university 

 degrees as a proportion of the 22- 

 year-old population was 22.6 per- 

 cent, compared to 25.3 percent for 

 the United States (chart 27). The 

 United States confers a significantly 

 higher total number of doctorates 

 than does Japan; however, when the 

 number of doctoral degrees is mea- 

 sured in proportion to the 27-year- 

 old age group, the overall ratios are 

 close: 0.5 percent for Japan and 0.7 

 for the United States. The difference 

 is in part due to the higher U.S. pro- 

 portion of natural sciences docto- 

 rates (chart 28).^" 



While Japan's higher education 

 system annually graduates about the 

 same number of first-degree engi- 

 neers as does the United States, it 

 graduates only about one-tenth as 

 many first-degree students in the 

 natural sciences. The distribution of 

 Japanese first university S/E degrees 

 among fields is dissimilar to that of 

 the United States, but both coun- 

 tries grant about the same relative 



*Note that an increasingly higher proportion of 

 doctorates granted in the United States go to non- 

 U.S. citizens. In 1985, 28percentof all S/E doctorates 

 were granted to noncihzens, the proportion was 57 

 percent for engineering doctorates. 



Chart 27. First-university degrees as a proportion of 

 the 22-year-old population: 1985 



Percent 

 30 



25 - 



20 - 



15 



10 



I -J Japan 



United States 



Dm^ 



30 



25 



- 20 



15 



- 10 



- 5 



Natural sciences Engineering 



SOURCE National Science Foundation, SRS. table B-23 



Agriculture 



All fields 



<.i;a.,.:.j 



Chart 28. Doctoral degrees as a proportion of 

 the 27-year-old population: 1984 or 1985 



Percent 

 1,0 



0.6 



0.4 



0.2 



1.0 



0.8 



0.6 



0.4 



0.2 



Natural sciences 



Engineering 



All fields 



SOURCE: National Science Foundation, SRS, table 8-24 



27 



