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Sep 19, 2007

The more educated a work force is, the more opportunities for employment there are for everyone - even those who do not have an advanced degree - says a sweeping new report from the OECD.

Category: General

Posted by: webmaster

Article by: Elizabeth Church, Globe and Mail

Just as a rising tide lifts all boats, the report finds evidence that when an increasing number of people go on to higher education, the job prospects for individuals who have less education are improved.

That finding, part of the annual Education at a Glance survey produced by the Organization for Economic Co-operation, runs counter to theories that an increasing number of skilled workers would "crowd out," less qualified individuals.

"There is much to point to the opposite," the OECD says. "The least-educated individuals benefit in terms of better employment opportunities when more people enter higher education."

This could be a reflection of the economic growth that comes from a highly skilled labour force, the report suggests.

Still, the report finds that college and university graduates continue to earn more money and find jobs more easily than those without degrees. That wage gap has increased in some countries, even as higher education has become more widespread, a reflection of employers' rising appetite for skilled workers.

"There is still a premium to having a postsecondary education," said Raymond Théberge, director general of the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada. "Those people who lack, particularly, a high school education will be left behind."

Paul Cappon, president of the Canadian Council on Learning, a federally funded research organization, said those with less education would be the first hit by a downturn in the economy. He said Canada is facing a shortage of skilled labour that is going to grow over the next decade. "We need those people to have more education. The unskilled are at a huge economic disadvantage."

In the case of Canada, the report finds that 46 per cent of the work force between 25 and 64 years of age have a college or a university degree - the highest level among OECD countries. The results are not as strong when only university degrees are considered. Twenty-three per cent of the work force has a university degree or higher. This is above the OECD average of 19 per cent, but lags the United States at 30 per cent and several European countries.

The study also finds that Canada produces fewer science graduates than average for the 30 industrialized countries represented by the OECD. It produced 1,163 science graduates for every 100,000 people who graduated with a university degree, compared with the survey average of 1,295. Men getting science degrees outnumbered women. The most popular degrees among Canadians are in the social sciences, business and law, followed by education.

The annual survey also points to the variation in earning power that graduates have depending on their field of study and gender. Using Canada as its example, the survey notes that female graduates in all areas of study earn less than their male counterparts. Graduates in health fields earned the most, followed by mathematic sciences, while those in fine arts had the lowest average income.

The vast study looks at several measures of educational success and spending, but Canadian numbers are not included in many instances. Mr. Cappon was critical of the lack of co-ordination in collecting information that he said is key to improving the system. "We don't even know how many students complete postsecondary education each year. We don't know how much we spend on each student," he said. "It's hard to know how to make progress if you don't know where the problems lie."

Patrice De Broucker, chief of education indicators at Statistics Canada, said the lack of Canadian numbers in many cases is because of variations in the methods of collecting information. He said efforts are now being made to collect data in a way that can be used by the OECD study. There is a growing desire on the part of provincial governments to look at performance against international measures, he said.

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