Using a new database created by integrating information from the Postsecondary Student Information System (PSIS) with 2016 Census data, this article examines the extent to which 2012 and 2013 graduates with a bachelor's degree who did not go back to school full time after graduating held a job requiring a high school diploma at most when they entered the labour market in 2016. The overqualification rate is examined according to several characteristics, such as sex, field of study, province, graduation year, belonging to a group designated as a visible minority and immigration status.
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Using a new database created by integrating information from the Postsecondary Student Information System (PSIS) with 2016 Census data, this article examines the extent to which 2012 and 2013 graduates with a bachelor's degree who did not go back to school full time after graduating held a job requiring a high school diploma at most when they entered the labour market in 2016. The overqualification rate is examined according to several characteristics, such as sex, field of study, province, graduation year, belonging to a group designated as a visible minority and immigration status.
Highlights: (1) the proportion of bachelor's degree graduates under the age of 35 who obtained their degree in 2012 and 2013 and had an occupation in 2016 that required at most a high school diploma was 16.7 per cent; (2) among these 2012 and 2013 bachelor's degree graduates, belonging to a group designated as a visible minority (GDVM) was associated with a higher risk of overqualification among women, particularly for Black women and for female South Asian immigrants; this was also the case for Canadian-born Black men, while Chinese immigrant men had a lower rate than Canadian-born men not belonging to a visible minority group; (3) women were slightly less likely than men to hold a low-skill job (high school level and lower); this advantage for women is relatively new, as there has been a reversal of the gap since 2001; (3) for these 2012 and 2013 bachelor's degree graduates and for all salaried workers under the age of 35 with a bachelor's degree, some fields of study are associated with lower overqualification rates; among men, these fields were architecture, engineering, and related technologies, and mathematics, computer and information sciences, while among women, the fields were health and related fields and education; (4) Master's degree graduates were two-and-a-half times less likely to hold a low-skill position; and (5) the rate of overqualification appears to decrease as graduates gain experience in the labour market.
Edited excerpts from publication and publisher's website.
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