Engineering graduates around the world (#19; Topic E)

An ab0ve-the-fold article in today's Investor's Business Daily gives a list of engineering graduates around the world in 2002 (the latest year of data by the National Science Foundation). Leading the pack is China with 219,563 and 21% of the world's total. This is followed by EU-15, at 179,929 and 17%; Japan, 104,478 and 10%; Russia, 82,409 and 8%; and India, 82,107 and 8%. US ranks 6th, with 59,536 and 6%. The article's subheading says it all: "Top students [in USA] shy away from the hard sciences; tech firms fear impact." Earlier, in Thomas Friedman's 2005 best-selling book, The World Is Flat, he gave similar statistics and sounded similar concern. On the other hand, these percentages are reminiscient of the distribution of world wealth during Zheng He's time (early 15th century), when China controlled about 29% of the world's wealth and Europe 19%. (These data are from my continuing research in the world economy in Zheng He's time.) Is the world returning to the good old days?
Posted at 9:47 pm, Thursday, January 5, 2006