Category: PSE Outcomes

That Overqualification Study

A couple of weeks ago, Statistics Canada published a study that looked at overqualification among university graduates (available here).  It’s a good-news story that deserves a bit more attention than it’s received. The study uses data from the 1991 and 2006 censuses, as well as the 2011 National Household Survey, to look at the changing occupational profile of Canadians aged 25-34.  To digress briefly into the world of occupation statistics: every occupation in North America is given what’s called a

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Using Comparative Labour Market Outcome Data to Think About Education

So, recently, a colleague sent me some data produced by CMEC on the subject of labour market outcomes by educational attainment, among 16-65 year-olds.  Here’s the first one, showing outcomes for Canada. Labour Market Status by Educational Attainment, 16-65 Year-Olds, Canada, 2012 (Source: The Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, 2012)               And here’s a similar one, showing the same thing for the OECD as a whole. Labour Market Status by Educational Attainment,

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Rewind on Those Foley/Green Numbers

So, you may remember that last week I published this neat little graph from the National Graduates Survey, showing university and graduate incomes across all ten provinces, three years after graduation.  Note that although the numbers vary by province, the university number is always higher than the college number. Median Earnings of College and Bachelor’s Graduates Three Years After Graduation, in 2013               The super-keen among you may also remember something I wrote three

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A *Tiny* Statscan Mistake on the National Graduates Survey (NGS)

OK, everyone. Gather ’round for a kind of mind-bending story, which totally invalidates much of what I was saying earlier this week about the NGS. So, NGS is a two-year follow up of graduates, done every five years. So, the 2002 survey looked at the class of 2000, 2007 surveys looked at the class of 2005.  Now, as I noted yesterday, for reasons unknown, Statistics Canada chose to wait until 2013 to do its follow-up of 2010 graduates.  My strong

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Early NGS Results: The Caveats

Yesterday, I showed you some charts on graduate outcomes indicating that the kids were – mostly – alright: employment steady, Full-time employment steady, graduate incomes steady, etc.  But there are three significant reasons to be cautious about over-interpreting these results. The first is that this year’s NGS was conducted differently from previous iterations.  In previous years, the survey was conducted two years after graduation.  This year, the survey was done three years out, with graduates being interviewed in 2013 about

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