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BaselineMonitoringReport Outcomes of Tertiary Education ← Educational Attainment in the Adult Population | Home Page | Participation in Tertiary Education → Tertiary education achieves outcomes in a number of areas for individuals who participate and achieve qualifications. These outcome areas include progression to further education, improved labour market status and also improved social and family outcomes. At present, the main data sources that show relationships between tertiary education and individual outcomes focus on employment, income and economic living standards. Information on progression to further education will be available from the Ministry of Education’s longitudinal dataset of student enrolments and completions. Further work is required to look at outcomes in other areas. To a large extent progress will be reliant on research. The work that Statistics New Zealand is conducting to improve the integration of social statistics may also provide a basis for monitoring outcomes across a range of areas. Outcomes of tertiary education can also be considered at a national level in the relationship between the outputs of tertiary education (people with qualifications and research output) and national economic and social indicators. Again, this is an area where further work is required to develop indicators that can be readily reported against. Tertiary education increases the chances of having a job …Over a ten-year period, people whose highest qualification was a tertiary qualification below degree level, had unemployment rates 1.5 to 2.5 percentage points lower than those with school qualifications only. People with degrees had unemployment rates that were 0.7 to 3.4 percentage points lower again. There was much less fluctuation in the unemployment rate for those with degrees than for those with lower-level tertiary qualifications or school qualifications only.
… but employment chances vary with field of studyIn 2001, unemployment rates for people with tertiary qualifications varied greatly by the field of study of the qualification. The highest rates of unemployment were in information technology. This coincided with a slump in demand in the information technology sector. The lowest rates of unemployment were in health and education. In most areas, women had higher rates of unemployment than men.
It should be noted that this is a snapshot view of employment outcomes at a particular point in time. It is also not adjusted for the levels of qualifications in each field, the length of time since graduation or the age profile of graduates in different fields. All of these factors would need to be considered in developing an accurate picture of employment outcomes at the subject level. The effect of labour market conditions on decisions to participate, or not, in tertiary education also needs to be examined further. People with tertiary education earn more on averageFrom 1997 to 2002, the average weekly income for those with tertiary degrees was more than double that for those with school qualifications only.
People with tertiary education have generally better living standardsIn 2002, the Ministry of Social Development released a report which provides a broad description of the living standards of New Zealanders. A new social measurement tool, the Economic Living Standard Index (ELSI), was developed to consolidate large amounts of information about different aspects of economic well-being, into a single score. The ELSI scale is made up of seven bands which describe the living standards of the New Zealand population from ‘very restricted’ to ‘very good’. The research found that there is a broad correspondence between level of education and living standards across ethnic, age and occupational groups. In aggregate, it shows that people with tertiary qualifications are less likely to be in the lowest two categories than people with only school qualifications. Those with degrees are much less likely to be in the lowest three categories than those with school or other tertiary qualifications. At the other end of the scale, people with degrees are much more likely to be in the very top category.
The raw data from the study shows that people with school qualifications only, are more likely to have better standards of living overall than those with tertiary qualifications below degree level. This is influenced by people in older age groups having lower levels of qualifications and reasonably good living standards. When the mean scores are standardised for age, it shows a small increase in living standards for people with tertiary qualifications below degree level, compared with those with school qualifications only. The age-standardised scores confirm that holding a tertiary degree significantly improves living standards. It also shows that having no qualification significantly decreases living standards. Table 1: Mean ELSI scores and mean ELSI scores standardised for age by highest educational qualification of those aged 18 years and over, 2000
Source: Ministry of Social Development, New Zealand Living Standards 2000. ← Educational Attainment in the Adult Population | Home Page | Participation in Tertiary Education → Page last modified on 26 November 2006, at 06:29 PM |
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