Underrepresented minorities comprise only about 4.6 percent of the graduate student population in natural sciences and about 4 percent in engineering. This growth is from a small base, however, and minority students still represent only a half of 1 percent of all doctoral degrees. Since 1979, increases in participation for minorities have been greater than for whites, but the overall number of black, Hispanic, and Native American researchers remains low. Their increasing share among researchers is roughly in line with their growing share of academic employment. They constituted 10 percent of academic researchers in 1991, up from 4 percent in 1979.
Minorities are underrepresented in the engineering workforce.
The percentage of blacks in the engineering workforce increased from 2.6 percent in 1983 to 4.0 percent in 1992, and the percentage of Hispanics increased from 2.2 to 3.1 percent over the same period.