DEMOGRAPHIC DYNAMICS OF THE UNITED STATES GEOSCIENCE WORKFORCE

In the past year, issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the geosciences came under increased scrutiny despite over 40 years of efforts to address well-known racial/ethnic disparities across the discipline. Traditional efforts toward broadening participation and opportunities for diverse identities in geosciences are demonstrably ineffective. Thus, now is the moment to re-examine demographic trends in the geosciences from novel perspectives. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics provide contrasting demographies useful for framing the demographic dynamics of the United States geoscience workforce to interpret systemic or institutionalized barriers to inclusion of diverse identities. The demographic trajectory of the United States general population trends monotonically toward increasingly diverse identities over more than 60 years. In contrast, demography of the geoscience workforce displays pronounced cyclicity of non-Caucasian identities coincident with well-documented economic cycles of geologic resource industries. Non-Caucasian employment in U.S. geosciences reaches maximum values of about 17% at cycle crests and declines to values <9% at cycle troughs (representing approximately 50% reduction of non-Caucasian employment across the geosciences sector). Mean non-Caucasian representation in the geoscience workforce over the last 30 years was approximately 12%. Consequently, the geoscience workforce displays a diversity gap that is growing larger over time – the U.S. geoscience workforce is increasingly less representative of the U.S. general population. This phenomenon indicates a non-equilibrium system driven by a self-reinforcing positive feedback favoring employment of Caucasian identities over non-Caucasian identities. The geosciences should acknowledge and investigate the process(es) of systematic exclusion responsible for perpetuating Caucasian dominance and evident privilege of employment in the national geoscience workforce. Progress accepting diverse identities in the geosciences professions will depend on significantly perturbing or eliminating outright bias-oriented processes from the demographic dynamics of the discipline.