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This paper assesses the extent to which education affects how Canadians save and accumulate wealth for retirement. The paper makes three contributions. First, a descriptive analysis is presented of differences in savings and home values across individuals based on their levels of educational attainment. To this end, new datasets that link survey respondents from the 1991 and 2006 censuses of Canada to their administrative tax records are used. These data provide a unique opportunity to jointly observe education, savings, home values, and a plethora of other factors of relevance. The data show that both savings and home values increase with the highest level of schooling attained. Second, the causal effect of high school completion on savings rates in tax-preferred accounts is estimated, exploiting compulsory schooling reforms in the identification. The analysis indicates that high school completion boosts retirement savings rates by 2 to 6 percentage points annually, even after controlling for income and many other factors that may indirectly affect this result. Third, building on a recent study by Messacar (2015), education is also found to affect how individuals re-optimize their savings rates in response to an automatic change in pension wealth accumulation. Overall, individuals with lower levels of education are found to save less for retirement than those with higher levels of education but to benefit from an automatic pension contribution by remaining passive, whereas those with higher levels of education respond to the distortion by actively adjusting contributions across savings vehicles at relatively low cost. The implications of this study's findings for the "nudge paradigm" in behavioural economics are discussed.

Since its inception almost 30 years ago, BC Student Outcomes has looked at the outcomes of students who have taken associate degree, diploma, and certificate programs. Subsequent study or further education has always been considered an important outcome for the students who leave these programs. Each year for the last two decades, between 40 and 48 percent of respondents have taken some form of further studies. These studies range from continuing education courses for personal interest to credential programs in baccalaureate and postgraduate programs. The information for this paper comes from the Diploma, Associate Degree, and Certificate Student Outcomes Survey, which is conducted annually, approximately one and a half years after students leave their programs. Unless otherwise noted, the information comes from the 2016 survey. The paper looks at who took further education (demographics, program and credential, over time), what their pathways to continued learning were (previous education, location, destination studies, over time), and what their experience was (satisfaction with education, transfer credits, prepared for further studies). Lastly, it provides a portrait of those who were studying at the time they were surveyed. [The BC Student Outcomes surveys are conducted with funding from the Ministry of Advanced Education, Skills and Training, the participating British Columbia post-secondary institutions, and the Industry Training Authority.]

While destination-country education provides many potential advantages for immigrants, empirical studies in Australia, Canada and the United States have produced mixed results on the labour outcomes of immigrants who are former international students. This study uses large national longitudinal datasets to examine cross-cohort trends and within-cohort changes in earnings among three groups of young university graduates: immigrants who are former international students in Canada (Canadian-educated immigrants), foreign-educated immigrants who had a university degree before immigrating to Canada and the Canadian-born population. The results show that Canadian-educated immigrants on average had much lower earnings than the Canadian-born population but higher earnings than foreign-educated immigrants both in the short term and in the long term. However, Canadian-educated immigrants are a highly heterogeneous group, and the key factor differentiating their post-immigration earnings from the earnings of the Canadian-born population and foreign-educated immigrants is whether they held a well-paid job in Canada before becoming permanent residents.

The digital revolution and automation are accelerating changes in the labour market and in workplace skills, changes that are further affected by fluctuations in international and regional economic cycles and employment opportunity. These factors pose a universal policy challenge for all advanced economies and governments. In the workplace, people seek to acquire contemporary and relevant skills to gain employment and retain transferable skills to maintain employment. The central purpose of this paper is to investigate how other nations or regions are dealing with these issues. What approaches are they taking to understanding the mix and dynamics of the skills attained by individuals and, more broadly, the totality of skills that in aggregate constitute a highly capable and adaptable labour force, one that supports firm viability and greater national productivity. This research has examined a range of initiatives and approaches being developed or in use in selected countries, including the United States, Singapore and New Zealand, and agencies/organisations; for example, the European Commission and the Skills for the Information Age Foundation. In doing so, it showcases the good practices used to ensure that occupational-level skills information remains current and widely accessible. [For "Identifying Work Skills: International Case Summaries. Support Document," see ED579875.]

The increased migration of skilled workers globally has led to a focus in the immigration literature on the economic costs of unsuccessful labour market integration. Less attention has been given to the consequences of employment difficulties, such as those related to over-education, on aspects of immigrants' subjective well-being. Although a large proportion of immigrants experience over-education, studies examining the relationship between over-education and life satisfaction tend to concentrate on the general population. These studies find a negative relationship between over-education and life satisfaction. Since immigrant and Canadian-born (non-immigrant) workers may experience over-education differently, it is important to examine this relationship in both groups. This study examines how over-education is associated with life satisfaction among university-educated immigrant and non-immigrant workers in Canada, and accounts for differences in the degree of over-education in each group. Results indicate that overeducation was negatively associated with life satisfaction among immigrants and non-immigrants, although the effect was weaker in the immigrant population. Income was the main factor mediating the negative relationship between over-education and life satisfaction among immigrants. Furthermore, this relationship weakened with immigrants' increased residence in Canada. This may suggest that over-education is less influential in immigrants' assessment of life satisfaction over time, or the effect of over-education is weaker among earlier arrival cohorts. Results also indicated that the negative relationship between over-education and life satisfaction was weaker for immigrants from developing countries compared with those from developed countries.

This study examines the relationship between occupational skill requirements and educational attainment (the highest level completed and the field of study). Using the 2011 National Household Survey matched to data from the Occupational Information Network (which contains information on occupational skill requirements), the study uncovers many new findings on the skill requirements of jobs held by Canadians aged 25 to 34 with different educational qualifications. First, skill-level requirements in all areas generally increase with higher educational levels. There are three notable exceptions to this trend, however: requirements for technical operation and maintenance skills do not generally increase with more schooling; doctoral graduates require considerably less resource management skills than other university graduates; and professional-degree holders have jobs that require lower mathematics skills than other university graduates, although this is entirely because of law graduates. Moreover, skill requirements are almost always higher among bachelor's degree holders and college graduates of specific disciplines, compared with high school graduates. Second, skill requirements vary considerably by field of study. For example, bachelor's degree holders in architecture, engineering, and related technologies generally work in multidimensional jobs requiring diverse, high-level skills. In fact, these graduates rank at the top or very close to the top in eight of the nine skills examined. In contrast, bachelor's degree holders in three fields (education; visual and performing arts, and communications technologies; and humanities) generally rank lower than other bachelor's degree holders in most skills examined. However, the skill requirements of college graduates and bachelor's degree holders are very different across fields of study. While skill requirements are almost always higher among bachelor's degree holders than among college graduates from the same discipline, the relative ranking of disciplines tends to differ for each level. Finally, there are considerably more gender differences among college graduates than among bachelor's degree holders with regard to skill requirements by field of study.

Faced with job loss, displaced workers may choose to return to school to help them reintegrate into the labour force. Job losses in a given local labour market may also induce workers who have not yet been laid off to pre-emptively enrol in postsecondary (PS) institutions, as a precautionary measure. Combining microdata and grouped data, this study examines these two dimensions of the relationship between layoffs and PS enrolment over the 2001-to-2011 period. Using individual-level longitudinal microdata and controlling for the unobserved heterogeneity of workers in a flexible way, the study finds that laid-off male and female workers are 2 to 4 percentage points more likely than other men and women to transition to PS education in the year of the layoff or the following year (from a baseline rate of about 3%). For both sexes, fulltime PS enrolment accounts for most of the increase in enrolment. Statistically significant correlations between layoffs and full-time PS attendance are detected between two years before job loss and two years after job loss. The study also takes advantage of the fact that the 2008-2009 recession increased layoff rates in a differentiated way across Canada and, thus, generated exogenous variation in layoff rates at the regional level. Using grouped data models that allow economic regions to display distinct trends in their rates of transition to PS institutions, the study finds that for every additional 100 adult men laid off in an economic region in a given year, there is an additional 2 to 6 men who enrol in PS education institutions on a full-time basis in the following year. The study also detects a positive relationship between regional layoff rates and regional PS transitions for unmarried women. In line with the notion that some non-laid-off workers may pre-emptively enrol in PS institutions, the study finds evidence that movements in regional layoff rates are positively correlated with short-term transitions to PS institutions for adult male workers aged 35 to 44 who have not been laid off yet.

The worldwide school closures in early 2020 led to losses in learning that will not easily be made up for even if schools quickly return to their prior performance levels. These losses will have lasting economic impacts both on the affected students and on each nation unless they are effectively remediated. While the precise learning losses are not yet known, existing research suggests that the students in grades 1-12 affected by the closures might expect some 3 percent lower income over their entire lifetimes. For nations, the lower long-term growth related to such losses might yield an average of 1.5 percent lower annual GDP for the remainder of the century. These economic losses would grow if schools are unable to re-start quickly. The economic losses will be more deeply felt by disadvantaged students. All indications are that students whose families are less able to support out-of-school learning will face larger learning losses than their more advantaged peers, which in turn will translate into deeper losses of lifetime earnings. The present value of the economic losses to nations reach huge proportions. Just returning schools to where they were in 2019 will not avoid such losses. Only making them better can. While a variety of approaches might be attempted, existing research indicates that close attention to the modified re-opening of schools offers strategies that could ameliorate the losses. Specifically, with the expected increase in video-based instruction, matching the skills of the teaching force to the new range of tasks and activities could quickly move schools to heightened performance. Additionally, because the prior disruptions are likely to increase the variations in learning levels within individual classrooms, pivoting to more individualised instruction could leave all students better off as schools resume. As schools move to re-establish their programmes even as the pandemic continues, it is natural to focus considerable attention on the mechanics and logistics of safe re-opening. But the long-term economic impacts also require serious attention, because the losses already suffered demand more than the best of currently considered re-opening approaches.

It has been well documented that the children of immigrants in Canada outperform their peers with Canadian-born parents in educational attainment, and that the two groups have similar labour market outcomes. However, large variations by ethnicity or source country exist among the children of immigrants. This study examines the extent to which admission class (e.g., skilled workers, business immigrants, live-in caregivers, the family class and refugees) also matters in the socioeconomic outcomes of childhood immigrants who arrived in Canada before the age of 18. Using the 2011 National Household Survey, linked with the Immigrant Landing File, this study finds large differences by admission class in university completion rates and earnings for childhood immigrants aged 25 to 44. Children of skilled workers and business immigrants had the highest university completion rates and earnings. Children of live-in caregivers and in the family class had the lowest university completion rates, and children of live-in caregivers and refugees landed in Canada had the lowest earnings. The analysis shows that the admission class of immigrant parents matters to their children's outcomes partly through group differences in the education and official language ability of parents and partly through the unique pre- and post-migration circumstances experienced by each admission class.

Are teachers and principals aligned in their perceptions of the core components of the theory of Leadership for Learning across countries, or are there subgroups of schools in which there is misalignment? The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which a congruency-typology model of leadership for learning is distributed across countries/economies using the TALIS 2018 dataset through examining the interaction of significantly different subgroups of teacher and principal responders through using multilevel latent class analysis (LCA) with a cross-level interaction. I analyse data from lower secondary schools of n=152 635 teachers in 9 079 schools and their principals across 47 countries/economies. Currently in the research literature on school leadership, leadership for learning has emerged as a framework to bring together managerial, transformational, distributed, and instructional leadership. Yet little is known about leadership for learning across national contexts. This study 1) maps the TALIS 2018 survey items to the current literature and surveys for leadership for learning, 2) then details the methods and analysis framework to examine if there are multiple significantly different types of teachers, principals, and schools from a leadership for learning theory framework. The final model 3) identifies a three-group teacher typology and a three-group principal typology, linking these types to school context, covariates, as well as teacher and principal training and experience. Results relate directly to the intersection of research, policy, and practice for training and capacity of school leaders across 47 countries/economies globally.

Research suggests which study strategies are effective but little descriptive research focuses on how undergraduate students study in real-world settings. Thus, the mechanisms of students' actual learning remain a black box for the field of higher education, with far more attention paid to inputs and outputs of the learning process. Using a situative theory of cognition and learning, we analyzed data from 22 focus groups (N = 60 students). Results indicate studying is a multi-faceted process that is initiated by instructor or self-generated cues, followed by marshaling resources and managing distractions (or not), and then study behaviors that include selecting time, setting, and specific strategies. Underlying these behaviors are contextual factors including course material and students' personal lives. The results highlight the importance of self-regulation skills, particularly managing digital distractions, and we suggest that the development of these skills should be more frequently incorporated into instructional design and student support services.

This systematic review investigates the relevance of general pedagogical knowledge for successful teaching. It synthesises the empirical evidence of 10 769 teaching professionals and 853 452 students from primary to tertiary education in 21 countries. The meta-analysis of 20 quantitative studies revealed significant effects for teaching quality and student outcomes (Cohen's d = 0.64 and 0.26), indicating that more knowledgeable teachers achieve a three-month additional progress for students. The three themes emerging from 31 qualitative studies underline that general pedagogical knowledge is a crucial resource for teaching. Results also show that teaching requires knowledge about a range of topics, specific skills and other competences to transform knowledge into practice. Teachers need training and practical experience to acquire knowledge, which they apply according to the pedagogical situation at hand. The results allow for important conclusions for policy, practice and research.

Through a historical and comparative analysis of international education policy development in Canada and the U.S., this paper will map the similarities and differences in the two countries. It will highlight the contributions and challenges of the government's involvement in international education (IE) in the two federal states and in particular, explore the implications of the changing contexts, rationales and approaches for international education to the federal role in higher education. It will conclude with observations on the differential impact of the federal government's role in international/higher education on the higher education systems of the two countries and thus contribute to our understanding of how national specificities and characteristics outweigh the commonly stated policy rationales, approaches and outcomes for international education. [A bibliography is included.]

In 2011, the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) founded the Center for Community College Advancement to provide training and resources to help community colleges build and sustain effective fundraising, alumni relations, and communications and marketing programs. A goal for the center is to collect data on best practices at community colleges. This white paper summarizes the results of a survey on foundation operations at community colleges across the United States and Canada. The purpose of the survey was to help community college staff benchmark their foundation experiences and programs with their peers. Participation in the survey was strong, with representatives from 122 foundations in the United States and Canada having contributed data (approximately 10 percent of the universe of institutions). Their responses revealed that foundations have evolved into significant contributors at community colleges through consistent positive results, service to a variety of stakeholders and leveraging of political capital--all while maintaining a low staff count and limited expenditures. Two appendices provide data tables and the survey questions.

Students often express surprise at their grades on papers. This gap between expectation and achievement may stem in part from lack of facility with revision strategies. How, then, can teachers work with their students to foster more effective revisions? This question in teaching and learning has inspired an interdisciplinary collaboration: one of us is a management and leadership professor (Sharen), and the other is an English/communication professor (Feltham). In this essay, we describe a research study from winter 2013 in which we explored how a series of interventions improved students' mindsets about the process of drafting and revising reports for a second-year-university course entitled "Women and Leadership." After outlining key aspects of this study that we feel are of general interest, we then present a series of reflective suggestions about how to teach revision derived from both our experiences and a selective survey of the literature on both revision and self-regulation.

Information from the BC Diploma, Associate Degree, and Certificate Student Outcomes (DACSO) Survey can be used to look at the impact of increasing post-secondary education costs on student borrowing and the use of other funding sources. For many years, the DACSO Survey has been asking former students about how they paid for their studies: what sources of funding they used, whether they borrowed, and how much they borrowed. The information for this paper came from the DACSO Survey, from the years 2003, 2006, 2009, 2012, and 2015. Some financial information was collected every year; however, every third year a more extensive set of questions was asked. Respondents were asked what sources of funding they used and if they borrowed for the program they just finished. There are a number of sources of funding that help students pay for their education, and the former students surveyed chose the two sources most important to them. The most important sources of funding have been consistent, with the exception of government student loans. They have declined as an important source, although remain among the top four sources reported. Personal savings, employment while studying, and support from family and friends were also among the most important sources of funding. In spite of some slight indication that more support is needed, it appears that most respondents were able to finance their education without borrowing at all or by borrowing moderate amounts. Over the last dozen years, those who borrowed relied less on the government student loan program as loans from other sources became more readily available. Regardless of the source, the amounts have increased, allowing borrowers to cover increased costs due to inflation. [The BC Student Outcomes surveys are conducted with funding from the Ministry of Advanced Education, the participating British Columbia post-secondary institutions, and the Industry Training Authority.]

A defining characteristic of current U.S. educational policy is the use of data to inform decisions about resource allocation, teacher hiring, and curriculum and instruction. Perhaps the biggest challenge to data-driven decision making (DDDM) is that data use alone does not automatically result in improved teaching and learning. Research indicates that translating raw data into useable information and actionable knowledge for teachers requires not only adequate technical and social supports, but also an awareness of how educators in real-world settings actually use information to make decisions. Yet, little is known about DDDM in higher education, in general, and how postsecondary faculty make sense of and use data in their instructional decision-making processes, in particular. In this paper, we use naturalistic decision-making theory to generate practice-based descriptions of how 59 STEM faculty at three large public research universities used data as part of their course planning. Interview transcripts and notes taken while observing planning meetings were analyzed using an inductive approach to content analysis. In practice, respondents used different types of data and other information obtained from, for example, student assessments, end-of-semester evaluations, and conversations with colleagues. Results indicate that faculty generally collect and analyze data in informal, ad hoc scenarios ungoverned by institutional policy. Exceptions include disciplines with accreditation pressures and team-taught courses where structured (and supported) opportunities exist for faculty to collect, analyze, and reflect upon data about student learning. Thus, while numeric data are clearly viewed by this population of faculty as the most rigorous, in practice, even those that use quantitative data also use other sources of information. These results suggest an opportunity for educational leaders to design policies and professional development initiatives that facilitate a more formal collection of and reflection on data by faculty. In pursuing such technical solutions, however, policymakers and educational leaders must carefully negotiate the tension between rigor and relevance, and learn from the challenges experienced in the K-12 sector regarding DDDM.

The recent refugee crisis has put many Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries under considerable pressure to accommodate and integrate large numbers of refugees. Refugee students are a particularly vulnerable group due to their forced displacement, but their needs are not always met by education systems, which can hinder the integration potential of these students. This poses considerable challenges as the integration of refugee students in education systems is important for their academic outcomes as well as their social and emotional well-being. The success (or lack of) integration in schools can also affect the future labour market and social integration potential of these children and youth. While there is a growing body of research on the integration of immigrants, policy-relevant research on refugee children and youth from an educational perspective is rather limited, fragmented and case specific. Detailed surveys and research projects focusing on the current wave of refugees that allow for cross-country comparisons are not yet available. Drawing on research from previous refugee waves, the paper examines key needs of refugee students and factors that promote their integration. It proposes a holistic model of integration in education that responds to the learning, social and emotional needs of refugee students. Furthermore, the paper examines what type of policies and practices are in place in OECD countries that support the integration of refugee students. Nonetheless, evaluations of practices and policies are often missing, which makes it difficult to assess whether they are successful. The paper finishes with some policy pointers on how to promote the integration of refugee students.

This paper explores the impact of test-taking conditions on the quality of the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) assessment. Interviewers record information about the room of assessment and interruptions that occurred during each interview. These observations, along with information on interviewer assignment size and a careful look at interviewer effects, provide insights into the quality of the assessment. This working paper first describes the variations in test-taking conditions among participating countries. Second, it examines interviewer assignment sizes and the frequency of interruptions, finding that both vary markedly among countries (contrary to the room of assessment). The paper then looks at the relationship between these variations and response rates and engagement measures. While neither the room of assessment nor the recorded interruptions impact quality differences among countries, interviewer assignment size and interviewer effects may have a mild impact on results.

Prepared for a Strategic Education Governance learning seminar, this working paper analyses the ways in which the Dutch government tried to reach overarching goals in education, in a system characterised by a high degree of distributed autonomy of education institutions and the participation of multiple actors, and consequently a government highly dependent on the collaboration with stakeholders. The paper introduces four perspectives on governance: 'traditional public administration', 'new public management', 'network governance' and 'societal resilience'. In practice, these perspectives do not exclude each other. Based on three cases the paper shows that the Dutch government used simultaneously different perspectives in each case and across the cases, in various combinations. Each combination proved to have its pros and cons. The paper argues for a deliberate consideration and choice of governance perspectives as an important element of policy preparation.

This paper looks at the importance of mechanisms that give formal recognition to vocational skills acquired through work-based learning and how such mechanisms might be developed. It describes how skill recognition can benefit individuals, employers and society as a whole, and identifies in which contexts skill recognition has the highest potential to bring benefits. The focus is on three tools that are commonly used to shorten the path to a formal qualification: admission into a programme, reduced programme duration and qualification without a mandatory programme. For each of these tools, this paper sets out country approaches, discusses common challenges that arise in their implementation and advances policy messages to support policy design and implementation.

This study examines the roles played by student characteristics, school resources and practices, peer effects, and province fixed effects in accounting for differences in the academic outcomes of private and public high school students. Private high school students score significantly higher than public high school students on reading, mathematics, and science assessments at age 15, and have higher levels of educational attainment by age 23. Two factors consistently account for these differences. Students who attended private high schools were more likely to have socio-economic characteristics positively associated with academic success and to have school peers with university-educated parents. Province of school attendance accounted for a substantial portion of the differences in academic outcomes measured in high school (i.e., test scores and high school graduation rates), but generally not at the postsecondary level. School resources and practices accounted for little of the differences in academic outcomes.

The opportunity to study abroad is broadly hailed as a route for young people to develop a wide range of knowledge and skills, including intercultural understanding, interpersonal skills, and language learning, among many others. Universities around the world are investing significant resources in developing a variety of study abroad programmes, ranging from short or long term in duration, and from guided to independent study. These may have a number of aims, including to promote individual student learning and development and to enhance student mobility and employability, particularly in the context of a rapid and changeable global employment market. The terms 'global citizen', 'global graduate', 'global skills' and 'global mindset' have all taken on increased significance within this context. Limited research has been conducted, however, to explore students' own perspectives of these terms. This small scale study therefore set out to explore the perspectives of students on UCL's BASc programme and especially to better understand where and how the learning they gained during study abroad resonates with UCL's global citizenship and student mobility strategies. [Funding was provided by the UCL Global Engagement Office (GEO).]

Numeracy and literacy skills have become increasingly important in modern labour markets. The large gender differences that several studies have identified have therefore sparked considerable attention among researchers and policy makers. Little is known about the moment in which such gaps emerge, how they evolve and if their evolution differs across countries. We use data from large-scale international assessments to follow representative samples of birth-cohorts over time, and analyse how gender gaps in numeracy and literacy evolve from age 10 to age 27. Our results suggest that, across the countries examined, males' advantage in numeracy is smallest at age 10 and largest at age 27. The growth in magnitude of the gender gap is particularly pronounced between the age of 15 and 27. Such evolution stands in sharp contrast with the evolution of the gender gap in literacy, which is small at age 10, large and in favour of females at age 15, and negligible by age 27.

This study uses the PIAAC data to examine the relationships between education system characteristics (e.g. early tracking and vocational education orientation) and distributions of adult numeracy skills. It also investigates the effects of postponing the tracking age and easing university access for students on a vocational track on the average skills and different percentiles of the skills distribution. Correlational analysis suggests that education systems with more students enrolled in vocational tracks have on average higher levels of numeracy skills and more compressed skills distributions between the 50th and 90th percentiles. Further analysis suggests that postponing the tracking age among 14 European countries does not have a significant effect on the average skills of the population. However, it increases skills for individuals at the 10th, 20th, and 30th percentiles of the skill distribution. Expanding university access is associated with an increase in numeracy skills, particularly for individuals at the bottom three deciles of the distribution.

It is well-known that there are large disparities in academic achievement between children of different socio-economic status (SES) backgrounds. This study examines the evolution of disparities in literacy skills between adults of different SES backgrounds. It compares countries' patterns in the evolution of disparities in literacy by SES background as cohorts age and asks which patterns of educational and labour force participation predict a narrowing rather than a widening of these disparities. Since there is no international longitudinal study of skills across the entire adult life span, this study uses three cross-sectional international adult studies (International Adult Literacy Survey, Adult Literacy and Lifeskills and Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies) and matches birth years to create synthetic cohorts. Results indicate that there is large cross-national variation in the evolution of skills disparities associated with SES background. Disparities in literacy proficiency tend to widen when SES disparities in high school completion, professional and blue-collar employment increase. Disparities narrow when workers exit the labour force, a finding that is explained by the large inequalities in the employment experiences of individuals from different SES backgrounds, measured by differences in use of literacy skills at work. These results help to explain cross-national variation in the evolution of skills disparities by SES background, which has implications for policies aimed at closing skills gaps over the life course. [Funding from the OECD Thomas J. Alexander Fellowship Programme.]

This paper uses new administrative data with detailed borrower information and lengthy repayment histories from the Canada Student Loans Program (CSLP) to measure rates of return on undergraduate student loans. We document substantial heterogeneity in returns based on information available at the time loans were disbursed, including province of residence, field of study, and institution of attendance. Field of study is a particularly important determinant of rates of return, explaining 22% of the variation in predicted returns across borrowers. We explore the implications of this variation for CSLP cross-subsidization across borrowers and potential risk-based loan limits. Given the variation in ex ante predicted returns across borrowers, using all available information at the time of loan disbursement, we study the implications of potential cream-skimming of high-return borrowers by private lenders.

Resilience refers to the capacity of individuals to prosper despite encountering adverse circumstances. This paper defines academic resilience as the ability of 15-year-old students from disadvantaged backgrounds to perform at a certain level in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in reading, mathematics and science that enables them to play an active role in their communities and prepares them to make the most of lifelong-learning opportunities. Using data from the most recent PISA cycles, this paper explores changes in the share of resilient students over time (2006-2015); highlights the importance of school environments and resources in mitigating the risk of low achievement for disadvantaged students; and identifies school-level factors that are associated with the likelihood of academic resilience among socio-economically disadvantaged students. Analyses reveal that several countries were able to increase the share of resilient students over time, reflecting improvements in the average performance of students, or a weaker relationship between socio-economic status and performance. In the vast majority of education systems examined, the likelihood of academic resilience among disadvantaged students is lower in schools where students report a negative classroom climate. The paper concludes by exploring school policies and practices that are associated with a positive classroom climate. [This work was supported by a contribution to the PISA programme of work from Vodafone Germany Foundation.]

This paper focuses on children with a migration background and conceptualises their migration experience as adversity. The paper adapts the resilience framework to understand how immigrant children can overcome adversity. The paper discusses policy models that can be derived from adopting a resilience approach to the measurement of immigrant students' integration prospects and proposes a policy analysis framework. The "CHARM" framework helps to assess the extent to which destination country policies and practices support the educational and socioemotional well-being of immigrant children. Namely, it evaluates whether policies to consider (1) Cumulative adversity; adopt a (2) Holistic approach; consider (3) Adjustment as a dynamic process; identify a (4) Relational development; and implement a (5) Multilevel approach. The paper finally applies the CHARM framework to the education policies of Ontario, Canada and underscores the relevance of applying the CHARM framework across countries and jurisdictions to evaluate education policies that can promote the resilience of immigrant children.

The paper examines between-country differences in the mechanisms through which education could promote generalised trust using data from 29 countries participating in the OECD's Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC). Results indicate that education is strongly associated with generalised trust and that a large part of this association is mediated by individuals' literacy skills, income and occupational prestige. However, education gradients in levels of generalised trust and in the extent to which they are due to social stratification mechanisms or cognitive skills mechanisms vary across countries. Differences across countries in birthplace diversity and income inequality are correlated with how strongly education is associated with trust in different countries, as well as in the relative magnitude of direct and indirect associations. In particular, the relationship between literacy skills and generalised trust is stronger in the presence of greater birthplace diversity but is weaker in the presence of greater income inequality.

An emerging literature documents the many challenges faced by college students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Little is known, however, about how students responded to the adversity. Focusing on two large Canadian universities, we provide some of the first evidence on the coping strategies students reported and the relationships between their endorsement of specific coping strategies and their subsequent well-being. Students focused on compensating for a lack of structure by creating new routines, maintaining social connections, and trying new activities. Conditional on baseline problems indexes, students who initially endorsed social connectedness as a strategy score significantly higher on a comprehensive well-being index five to twelve weeks later. [Additional funding for this research was provided by the Jamal Poverty Action Lab.]

We assess the relationship between general literacy skills and health status by analysing data from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), an international survey of about 250,000 adults aged 16-65 years conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) from 2011-15 in 33 countries/national sub-regions. Across countries, there seems to be a strong and consistent association between general literacy proficiency and self-rated poor health, independent of prior socio-economic status and income. General literacy proficiency also appears to be a mediator of the association between self-education and self-rated poor health. While the literacy-health association is robust over time, it varies in magnitude across countries. It is strongest for those with a tertiary or higher degree and does not appear to exist among young adults (ages 25 to 34 years). Future studies are required to understand the contextual factors that modify the general literacy proficiency-health association.