At present, immigration ceilings are established for a very broad range of skilled occupations, of which doctoral-level science and engineering employment is only a small component. Policymakers infrequently re-evaluate the level at which these ceilings are set. There is no explicit mechanism for evaluating the demand for scientists and engineers, and changing the aggregate ceilings will do little to balance demand with supply. Moreover, because science and engineering labor markets are highly dynamic, it is difficult to anticipate the longterm trends on which more narrowly defined ceilings could be based. Finally, it is unclear how those ceilings should be established.
Many different stakeholders are involved, each with a different set of interests.
To answer these questions, we need to determine whether the flow of immigration in science and engineering is, in fact, a problem-and if so, for whom. Yet immigrants make up a large proportion of Ph.D.-level scientists and engineers. In 1993, for instance, immigrants comprised 23 percent of those holding doctorates in all science and engineering fields, and 40 percent of those holding doctorates in engineering. Even more important, foreign students account for nearly all of the increase in the number of doctorates awarded in these fields since that figure began to rise in the mid1980s. Clearly, immigration is a critical element in formulating policy for the science and engineering labor market.