Finish what you’ve started

(Unless it’s high school)

Magally Zelaya, staff

A recent study from Statistics Canada showed that time spent in school is not a perfect predictor of earnings as are credentials gained. The study showed that among the bottom 25th percentile of earners, high school dropouts earned more than those who had started a post-secondary program but did not complete it.

The study tracked youth ages 22 to 24 for a period ending in 2003 and used data from the most recently available Youth in Transition Survey.

A high school dropout in the bottom 25th percentile of total earnings earned an average of $340 per week while a person who went straight to post-secondary education and dropped out before completion made and average of $317 per week. Further, a post-secondary dropout who took time after high school before entering post-secondary education earned the least with an average of $299 per week.

The study links the finding to a “credentializing effect” as “time spent in a post-secondary program without seeing it through to completion does not lead to better earnings.”

The study attributes the findings at least in part to the fact that the university goers had less time for work experience.

High school students that worked more than 20 hours a week were found to earn 20 per cent more than respondents who never worked in high school. However, those who worked more than 20 hours a week in high school were also 32 per cent more likely to delay their post-secondary attendance as compared to those who did not work. As well, those students were found to be at greater risk of dropping out of high school.

The study also attributes the findings to the fact that post-secondary dropouts “were more represented among the lowest-paying sales and service occupations.” While high school dropouts were more likely to find work in “goods-producing and primary sectors.”

Though the rates of high school dropouts have fallen since the early ’90s and sits at 9.8 per cent of 20 to 24-year-olds in 2004-05, according to Statistics Canada, the career prospects for those who do not attain a Grade 12 diploma are not great.

“It closes so many doors,” said Marlene Roy, a labour market economist with Service Canada. Roy noted that dropouts typically find jobs in service, retail, and entry-level construction if they have no other formal training.

“At the entry level, personality customer service skills, basic ability to communicate, neatness, appearance — those kind of things would be probably more important to them than academic achievement,” said Roy.

Though there are jobs available, she said dropouts would find it harder to advance.

“If you don’t have the high school, how will you have the grammar, how will you have the critical thinking, how will you have a lot of the science and that theory that you need to go any further?” said Roy.

The Education-to-Labour Market Pathways of Canadian Youth was released Nov.1 and is available on the StatsCan website.