Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER CANADIAN HR REPORTER May 5, 2014 May 5, 2014 6 NEWS NEWS CPASource.com CPAs are Canada's most knowledgeable, skilled and respected accounting and business professionals. And this is where to find them. HIRE A PRO. University degrees on the rise – University degrees on the rise – but so are costs, career uncertainty but so are costs, career uncertainty Grads tend to cluster in fi elds of study with uncertain returns on investment Grads tend to cluster in fi elds of study with uncertain returns on investment BY LIZ BERNIER AS ONE OF the most highly educated countries in the world, Canada has seen its proportion of university graduates rise signifi - cantly over the past two decades. But while university degree attain- ment has risen steadily, so have the costs — and uncertainty about career prospects. Between 1991 and 2011, the proportion of young workers with a university degree has increased signifi cantly, said Sébastien La- Rochelle-Côté, an Ottawa-based economist and editor-in-chief of Insights on Canadian Society. " ere has been a large increase in the proportion of workers aged 25 to 34 with a university degree, so from 19 to 40 per cent among women, and from 17 to 27 (per cent) among men," said LaRo- chelle-Côté, who co-authored a Statistics Canada study on the subject. But as enrolment rates contin- ue to rise, the cost of a degree is increasing as well. Canada ranks fi rst among the 34 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries in terms of higher education, but our cost of education is roughly double the OECD average, said Benjamin Tal, deputy chief econ- omist at CIBC World Markets in Toronto. "Despite the fact that the cost is rising, enrolment is rising. Usu- ally, when the cost goes up, people buy less. But that's not the case with education," he said. "I guess people are realizing that education is the key for ev- erything, so it's defi nitely a nec- essary condition… you do need education in order to succeed in this society." Distribution in labour market Given the steady increases in the proportion of university gradu- ates, how are they distributed in the labour market? " at's essentially the question and that's why we did the stud- ies," said LaRochelle-Côté. "What happened in terms of the occu- pational profi le — we have more (graduates) so are they distributed diff erently than they were 20 years ago?" e answer? ere has been some degree of change but not much in terms of the top occupa- tions that graduates hold — and even less so among women, he said. "The top three occupations among women university gradu- ates are the same as in 1991 — nurses, elementary school teach- ers and secondary school teach- ers. And these three occupations accounted for 20 per cent of all women university graduates both in 1991 and 2011, so it's pretty static." Among male graduates, the top occupations were relatively simi- lar in 1991 and 2001 — fi nancial auditors, accountants and sec- ondary school teachers featured high on the list in both years — but the concentration of males in specifi c professions was not near- ly as strong as it was for women. "Concentration has always been stronger among women graduates compared to men," said LaRochelle-Côté. " at's not to say that there hasn't been any change — we looked at the top 25 (occupations) and some of them have been disappearing from the list… but levels of concentration haven't changed." The proportion of women grew in several diff erent occu- pations, including health policy researchers and consultants, hu- man resources specialists and general practitioners and family physicians. Too many overqualifi ed grads? Because there are so many more university graduates, some might imagine there's been a corre- sponding increase in how many overqualifi ed workers are out in the labour market, said LaRo- chelle-Côté. But, actually, the overqualifi cation rate, as the study measured it, hasn't really changed. "In terms of overqualifi cation, there hasn't been a lot of move- ment. You've got a large supply and there's no information on labour demand in this study. But given the fact that you've got a large supply over the period, and that overqualifi cation rate didn't change, then one explanation is the fact that there's probably been an increase in the demand for university graduates as well. at's the logical implication of the results," he said. LaRochelle-Côté and his fellow researchers defi ned overqualifi - cation as the proportion of uni- versity graduates in occupations demanding a high school educa- tion or less. "So that's one measure of over- qualifi cation — it's not the only one that exists, and I want to em- phasize that. It's the only one that we could use to try to get a sense of what happened over the course of the 20-year period that started in 1991 and ended in 2011," he said. "Among men, it's been very fl at — 18 per cent in 1991, 18 per cent in 2011. Among women, it's been a very small decrease — it was about 20 per cent in 1991 and now is 18 per cent… so not only is there not a lot of change over time, there is not a lot of change between men and women." STUDENTS > pg. 18 "Usually when costs go up, people buy less. But that's not the case."

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