IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdh/ebrief/104.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Payoff: Returns to University, College and Trades Education in Canada, 1980 to 2005

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel Boothby

    (Industry Canada)

  • Torben Drewes

    (Trent University)

Abstract

Among OECD countries, Canada has the highest percentage of postsecondary graduates in the population 25-64 years old, which is due to having a large proportion of nonuniversity postsecondary graduates from colleges and trade schools. By considering the financial returns to types of postsecondary education, which reflect demand and supply, this paper examines whether Canada has produced too many postsecondary graduates in general, or too many graduates from colleges or trade schools in particular. The answers to both questions is no. There are high rates of return to higher education, with the exception of women graduates of trade schools.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Boothby & Torben Drewes, 2010. "The Payoff: Returns to University, College and Trades Education in Canada, 1980 to 2005," e-briefs 104, C.D. Howe Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdh:ebrief:104
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cdhowe.org/payoff-returns-university-college-and-trades-education-canada-1980-2005
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brahim Boudarbat & Thomas Lemieux & W. Craig Riddell, 2010. "The Evolution of the Returns to Human Capital in Canada, 1980-2005," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 36(1), pages 63-89, March.
    2. Claudia Goldin & Lawrence F. Katz, 2007. "Long-Run Changes in the Wage Structure: Narrowing, Widening, Polarizing," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 38(2), pages 135-168.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pierre Siklos & Andrew Spence, 2010. "Faceoff: Should the Bank of Canada Release its Projections of the Interest Rate Path? – The Cases For and Against," C.D. Howe Institute Backgrounder, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 134, October.
    2. Bob Baldwin & Brian FitzGerald, 2010. "Seeking Certainty in Uncertain Times: A Review of Recent Government-Sponsored Studies on the Regulation of Canadian Pension Plans," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 310, September.
    3. Clyde Goodlet, 2010. "Too Big to Fail: A Misguided Policy in Times of Financial Turmoil," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 311, October.
    4. World Bank, 2014. "Tertiary Education in Indonesia : Directions for Policy," World Bank Publications - Reports 20024, The World Bank Group.
    5. Benjamin Dachis, 2010. "Picking up Savings: The Benefits of Competition in Municipal Waste Services," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 308, September.
    6. William B.P. Robson & Alexandre Laurin, 2015. "Challenges, Growth and Opportunity: A Shadow Federal Budget for 2015," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 423, April.
    7. Kevin D. Moore & William Robson & Alexandre Laurin, 2010. "Canada’s Looming Retirement Challenge: Will Future Retirees Be Able to Maintain Their Living Standards upon Retirement?," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 317, December.
    8. David C. Allan & Philippe Bergevin, 2010. "The Canadian ABS Market: Where Do We Go From Here?," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 315, November.
    9. Robbie Brydon & Ben Dachis, 2013. "Access Denied: The Effect of Apprenticeship Restrictions in Skilled Trades," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 380, May.
    10. Philippe Bergevin & David Laidler, 2010. "Putting Money Back into Monetary Policy: A Monetary Anchor for Price and Financial Stability," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 312, October.
    11. William B.P. Robson & Alex Laurin, 2016. "Where the Bucks Stop: A Shadow Federal Budget for 2016," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 447, March.
    12. Stuart Landon & Constance Smith, 2010. "Energy Prices and Alberta Government Revenue Volatility," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 313, November.
    13. Ben Dachis, 2013. "Cars, Congestion and Costs: A New Approach to Evaluating Government Infrastructure Investment," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 385, July.
    14. Andrew Green & Michael Trebilcock, 2010. "The Eco-Fee Imbroglio: Lessons from Ontario’s Troubled Experiment in Charging for Waste Management," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 316, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zsófia L. Bárány, 2016. "The Minimum Wage and Inequality: The Effects of Education and Technology," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(1), pages 237-274.
    2. Bas Jacobs, 2013. "Optimal redistributive tax and education policies in general equilibrium," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 20(2), pages 312-337, April.
    3. Brahim Boudarbat & Marie Connolly, 2013. "The gender wage gap among recent post‐secondary graduates in Canada: a distributional approach," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 46(3), pages 1037-1065, August.
    4. Thomas Lemieux, 2014. "Occupations, fields of study and returns to education," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1047-1077, November.
    5. Adam M. Lavecchia & Philip Oreopoulos & Robert S. Brown, 2020. "Long-Run Effects from Comprehensive Student Support: Evidence from Pathways to Education," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 209-224, June.
    6. Nicole M. Fortin & Thomas Lemieux, 2015. "Changes in wage inequality in Canada: An interprovincial perspective," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(2), pages 682-713, May.
    7. John B. Burbidge & Kirk A. Collins & James B. Davies & Lonnie Magee, 2012. "Effective tax and subsidy rates on human capital in Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 45(1), pages 189-219, February.
    8. Sophie van Huellen & Duo Qin, 2019. "Compulsory Schooling and Returns to Education: A Re-Examination," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 7(3), pages 1-20, September.
    9. Attanasio, Orazio & Low, Hamish & Sánchez-Marcos, Virginia & Levell, Peter, 2015. "Aggregating Elasticities: Intensive and Extensive Margins of Female Labour Supply," CEPR Discussion Papers 10732, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Pérez, Carlos & Martín-Román, Ángel & Moral, Alfonso, 2020. "Two decades of the complementary leisure effect in Spain," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 15(C).
    11. Celeste K. Carruthers & Christopher Jepsen, 2020. "Vocational Education: An International Perspective," CESifo Working Paper Series 8718, CESifo.
    12. Michael W. L. Elsby & Bart Hobijn & Aysegul Sahin, 2010. "The Labor Market in the Great Recession," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 41(1 (Spring), pages 1-69.
    13. Hötte, Kerstin, 2023. "Demand-pull, technology-push, and the direction of technological change," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(5).
    14. Alina K. Bartscher & Moritz Kuhn & Moritz Schularick, 2020. "The College Wealth Divide: Education and Inequality in America, 1956-2016," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 102(1), pages 19-49.
    15. Sarah Burkinshaw & Yaz Terajima & Carolyn A. Wilkins, 2022. "Income Inequality in Canada," Discussion Papers 2022-16, Bank of Canada.
    16. Enrico Moretti, 2013. "Real Wage Inequality," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 65-103, January.
    17. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/eu4vqp9ompqllr09i8hjg0kpi is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Koch, Michael & Smolka, Marcel, 2019. "Foreign ownership and skill-biased technological change," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 84-104.
    19. Biavaschi, Costanza & Burzyński, Michał & Elsner, Benjamin & Machado, Joël, 2020. "Taking the skill bias out of global migration," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    20. Aughinbaugh, Alison, 2012. "The effects of high school math curriculum on college attendance: Evidence from the NLSY97," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 861-870.
    21. Michael A. Clemens, 2022. "Migration on the Rise, a Paradigm in Decline: The Last Half-Century of Global Mobility," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 112, pages 257-261, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Education Papers; postsecondary education; OECD countries;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cdh:ebrief:104. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kristine Gray (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cdhowca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.