Echoing this overall demographic decline, the number of students enrolling in undergraduate engineering decreased by 16 percent, from a high point of 441,200 students in 1983 to 356,000 in 1996. This trend turned around slightly in 1997 and 1998, with a 1.5-percent increase in engineering enrollment. The entry of women into these fields has offset the overall demographic downturn. In 1997, more than 2.7 million students worldwide earned a first university degree in science or engineering. Students in the North American region earned 500,000 first university degrees in these fields.
Countries differ with regard to field emphases within science and engineering.
Engineering represents 46 percent of the earned bachelor s degrees in China, about 30 percent in Sweden and Russia, and about 20 percent in Japan and South Korea. In contrast, students in the United States earn about 5 percent of bachelor-level degrees in engineering fields. Natural sciences represent almost 12 percent of total U.S. bachelor-level degrees. Among the major industrialized countries in the world, the United States is one of the leading nations in providing broad access to higher education. The ratios for Italy and France were 13 per hundred in that same year.