The target population for this survey includes individuals in the United States as of April 1990 with a bachelor's degree or higher in any field, not just the sciences or engineering. Besides capturing people with degrees earned at U.S. institutions, the NSCG also includes college degree holders who earned their degrees outside of the United States but who were residing here in 1990. A third survey, the Survey of Doctorate Recipients , has been sponsored by the National Science Foundation and other federal agencies since the early 1970s. This is a broad designation that includes many fields of study, as well as many occupations. For example, it can be used to describe the educational background of engineers or social scientists.
Analysts can use the system to show what occupations people with physics degrees hold.
It can also be used to answer questions such as how age or gender are related to salary distributions for scientists or engineers working in different fields or with different degrees. The 1997 integrated database will be available in Spring 1999.