1998 vs. 2018 — Labour Market Outcomes by Age and Education

Been playing around with more of the Real Time Remote Access Labour Force Survey data as part of my summer project.

Tons to dig into here. I thought it might be interesting to see, at a very high-level, how things have changed over the past 20 years, based on age, sex and highest level of education, across Canada.

Percentage of people employed and currently at work

Here’s how things looked in 1998. The gap between men with higher education in the labour force, and women, was about 10 points. For lower levels of education, was closer to 20.

And here is how things stood in 2018. Eyeballing it, I didn’t see much of a change.

However, if we look at the overall change between the two years (that is 2018–1998), we see that a far greater proportion of Canadians between the ages of 55–74 are working now as compared to 1998.

Percentage of people not working and permanently unable to work

This measures the proportion of the population who do not have a job, and cannot work, due to disability or some other factor.

Here’s what it looked like in 1998:

And in 2018:

Overall, there has been a slight increase over time for individuals without higher education, though it is slight.

Percentage of people not working, not looking for work but able to work

This category includes retirees, full-time students, stay-at-home parents, and people who have dropped out of the labour force for one reason or another.

Here’s the 1998 data. Not surprisingly, the highest rates are found in those 75 and older:

And the 2018 data:

We have seen an increase in the figures for younger men over the last 20 years. Some of this likely has to do with the decline in manufacturing employment; part of our project is to determine the extent of the effect.

Average Weekly Hours Worked for those Employed

Wasn’t sure what to expect with this. Here’s the 1998 data:

And here’s the 2018 data:

There’s been a small decline in hours worked for men and a small increase for women. Could be that men are actually starting to contribute more to childcare responsibilities. I’m skeptical. Would be interesting to crosstab against whether or not there is a child/children in the home:

Average Hourly Wage

Here’s what things looked like in 1998, not adjusting for inflation. Gender pay gap shows up loud and clear:

And here’s the data for 2018 (again, not adjusting for inflation), where the gender pay gap shows up loud and clear:

Here’s the growth in wages in absolute terms (again, not accounting for inflation).

More relevant is the percentage increases. Note that total inflation was 46% during this period, so wages would need to rise that much just to keep up with inflation:

Younger workers have done quite well — I suspect much of that has to do with increases in the minimum wage over the past two decades. The trades have performed well. Whereas men with degrees above a Bachelor’s have seen their wages rise at (or in some cases below) the rate of inflation. I suspect part of it is a supply-side effect; the number of people who have obtained these degrees has increased substantially. Or maybe it’s because I made a mistake in the coding somewhere and these numbers are wrong. Both are possible.