Two unrelated things - an inquiry from a student working on a class project and the upcoming Women in Statistics conference – set me to thinking briefly about the demographics of ASA membership during its 175th anniversary year.
ASA members have the option to include demographic information, and about 75% of members have provided this information. Of those, about 1/3 are women. It is worth noting that women make up 43% of ASA members under 45, but only 23% of members 45 years of age and older.
Speaking of age, the mean age of members is 47.5 years, and the median age is 46. Seventeen percent are 30 or under, 38% are 40 or under, 58% are 50 or under, and 76% are 60 or under. A big shout out goes to the 2% of our members who have reached the age of 80. By the way, I’m older than 72% of the members. Approximating my age should not be difficult from this information.
About 8/9 of ASA members have advanced degrees (masters or doctorate).
Among those who identified their race, about 65% of ASA members are White, 29% are Asian, 3% are Black or African American, and 2% Hispanic/Latino/Latina.
Some 43% of the members of “The Big Tent for Statistics” work in academe (this does NOT include student members), 10% in government (state, provincial, local), and 47% in business/industry/private consulting/other.
Overall ASA membership right now is about 19,000 members. Of those, you may be surprised to learn that 1/9 are from outside the United States. Not surprisingly, Canadians make up the largest group of members outside the US (about 2.7% of total membership). The next ten largest countries in terms of ASA membership are, from largest to smallest, Japan, Australia, United Kingdom, China (including Hong Kong), Germany, Italy, Switzerland, South Korea, Belgium, and the Netherlands. People from 94 countries currently belong to the American Statistical Association.
This is a snapshot of the ASA at age 175. However, there are many aspects of the diversity of membership not represented in this data, and it does not at all capture the vastness of statistical practice represented by our members. We’ll paint that picture in future blogs.
Moreover, we’d like to see many changes in those numbers. We would love to increase the denominators, most importantly by moving well beyond 19,000 in total membership. Special thanks to the ASA’s Committee on Membership Retention and Recruitment for its work to help us grow.
We would also like to increase the number of members who have reported demographic information. ASA members can help us do this by logging into ASA Members Only, clicking on My Account, and then on My Demographic Profile.
Our most important and pressing challenge in this regard is to increase the number of women and minorities in the field. As long as we aren’t at least representative of the overall US population in these regards, we’re missing opportunities as a profession. We owe a debt of gratitude to the ASA’s Committee on Minorities in Statistics and the Committee on Women in Statistics as well as the Caucus for Women in Statistics for their on-going efforts.
Please tell us what you think we should be doing to grow membership and increase participation by underrepresented groups. And PLEASE tell us what YOU think you can do to help!
In 2014, the American Statistical Association is celebrating its 175th anniversary. Over the course of this year, this blog will highlight aspects of that celebration, and look broadly at the ASA and its activities. Please contact ASA Executive Director Ron Wasserstein (ron@amstat.org) if you would like to contribute an entry to this blog.