The Leading Edge; September 2000; v. 19; no. 9;
p. 972; DOI: 10.1190/1.1438770
© 2000 Society of Exploration Geophysicists
Who will fill our shoes?
Kay Dautenhahn Wyatt
SEG Student Sections/Academic Liaison Committee
Corresponding author: kdw@ppco.com
This article is from the original version, which appears on the Student Connection Web site, http://students.seg.org
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Who will fill our shoes?" This is a question that all SEG members should be asking themselves. Take a moment to examine Figures 1 and 2, reproduced from SEG's 1999 Salary Survey. Assuming the survey is representative of our membership as a whole, then several trends are definitely alarming:
- The median age of SEG members is 45.
- 75% of SEG members are age 40 or older.
- More than 51% of SEG members will reach retirement age (55) in the next 10 years.
- Only 0.5% of SEG members are younger than age 25, 4.0% are younger than age 30, and 11% are younger than age 35.
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Figure 1. Age distribution of SEG members. Notice the large concentration between ages 41 and 50.
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Figure 2. Percentage of SEG members younger than a given age. Notice that only 25% are younger than age 40.
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In other words, the SEG membership as a whole is advancing in age, and a very large percentage will be retiring in the next few years. On the other hand, relatively few young geoscientists are entering our profession to fill the gap. And in fact, the differential between these two groups is at alarming proportions!
Yet little is being done to encourage youngsters to enter our industry.
Currently, . . . [Full Text of this Article]
Copyright © 2009 by Society of Exploration Geophysicists
