Returns to university level education: Variations within disciplines, occupations and employment sectors

Overview

Abstract (English)

Using data from three waves (1990, 1995, and 2000) of the National Graduates Survey (NGS), this paper provides a detailed analysis of earnings differences between colleges or trade schools graduates and university graduates. The results indicate significant returns to a university degree, and the earnings difference is larger for women (about 27%) than for men (about 15%). However, the estimated differences between university graduates and graduates from colleges or trade schools decreased for both men and women between 1992 and 2002. For men, the differences dropped from 24.2% in 1992 to 16.7% in 2002, while it dropped from 31.3% to 24% for women. The results also show that there are large differences in the return to a university education across disciplines, industry, and occupations. As a complement to the NGS data, which only include graduates from post-secondary education, the paper also utilizes data from the three most recent Canadian Censuses (1991, 1996, and 2001) to investigate differences in earnings for high school and university graduates. These earnings differences are represented by the internal rates of return between high school and university graduates, and when aggregated across disciplines and regions, the results suggest a modest increase between 1991 and 2001, from 9% to 11%. Thus, while the earnings differences between trade schools and college graduates and university graduates decreased during the 1990s, the earnings differences between high school graduates and university graduates increased.

Abstract (French)

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