STEM Graduates: Which Countries Lead the Way?

Throughout most of the 20th century, the United States and Europe—particularly Russia, Germany, the UK, and France—were considered the global centers of scientific and technological education. In the last few decades, however, new players have emerged. In Asia, countries like China, India, South Korea, and Japan rapidly expanded their STEM education programs and today produce significant numbers of graduates in STEM fields. 

Figure 1 below shows the top eleven countries by number of STEM graduates in 2020. 

Figure 1 reveals a new shift in the global distribution of STEM graduates compared to the 2016 World Economic Forum report. The WEF report identified China, India, the United States, Russia, Iran, Indonesia, and Japan as the top seven STEM graduate-producing countries in the world. As of 2020, however, we find that Brazil and Mexico surpassed Iran and Japan in the number of graduates in STEM fields.

Figure 2 depicts the increase in STEM graduates in Brazil, Mexico, and Japan from 2015 to 2020. While Japan’s output of STEM graduates is relatively constant over the time period, Brazil’s number of graduates grew by ~26% and Mexico’s grew by ~30%. As higher numbers of STEM graduates have historically been an indicator of future economic growth, these strides in advancing STEM education suggest that Brazil and Mexico may be positioned for future success.

While the number of STEM graduates may serve as an indicator of future scientific and technological capacity, it fails to account for other differences in the STEM ecosystems of different countries. In Figure 3, the number of STEM graduates as a percentage of total graduates for each country to provide another perspective through which to understand the differences between countries’ STEM education ecosystems.

As shown in Figure 3, China leads in the percentage of students in STEM fields, with over 40 percent of college graduates obtaining a STEM degree. Not far behind, Russia, Germany, Iran, and India all produced more than 30 percent of graduates in STEM fields, with Germany closely rivaling Russia. Moreover, just 20 percent of graduates in the United States obtain a STEM degree, behind both Mexico and France.

In 2021, Malaysia said it wanted to raise its proportion of STEM students to 60%. In 2020, it was reported the percentage of students in STEM was 47.2%. But salaries are low for STEM graduates (RM5,000 or thereabouts) and opportunities are limited. In Singapore it is $4,000 for a fresh graduate. So, it is opportunities, salaries, an ecosystem that is supportive and a cohesive STEM education system.

Reference:

The global distribution of STEM graduates: which countries lead the way? Brendan Oliss, Cole McFaul and Jaret C. Riddick, CSET, 27 November 2023