Technology industry and the over-educated Russia

In a Goldman Sachs research note (pdf file), the human capital of four BRIC countries are analyzed.

It is found that, China has only marginally more tertiary graduates than Russia despite having 10 times the population of Russia.

Russia, despite much lower income than the U.S., already reaches 60% the U.S. level, in terms of tertiary graduates per capita.  Among population over age 25, in the U.S. there are 192 tertiary graduates in every 1,000 people, while in the Russia, it is already 115. The correspond number for China and India are merely 16 and 14, respectively.

Russia seems to have huge potential in moving to higher value-added technology industries than India does!

The research also finds that Russia has almost as many science and engineering PhDs as Germany, which is much richer than Russia.

But when it comes to the number of R&D workers, i.e., those who went through the education and are actually applying what they learn in the college to what they are supposed to do,  Russia starts to fall behind China and Japan. India is nowhere in the sight.

For Russia, the gap between number of people with science and technology degrees and the number of R&D professionals  seems to corroborate the worry by  cops around the world: mafia organizations are entering a new level of sophistication after Russians enter the trade, because most Russian mafia members have Ph.D. degree in physics or mathematics.