Most prevalent jobs of young master’s degree graduates by detailed field of study
Investing in a postsecondary education is an important decision in the lives of young people, because it may lead to significantly higher lifetime earnings (Frenette, 2019), which may vary substantially across different disciplines (Ostrovsky and Frenette, 2014). Beyond the monetary gains, the satis...
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| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Statistics Canada
2024-08-01
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| Series: | Economic and Social Reports |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/36-28-0001/2024008/article/00001-eng.htm |
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| Summary: | Investing in a postsecondary education is an important decision in the lives of young people, because it may lead to significantly higher lifetime earnings (Frenette, 2019), which may vary substantially across different disciplines (Ostrovsky and Frenette, 2014). Beyond the monetary gains, the satisfaction derived from one’s day-to-day work activities may also matter in overall life satisfaction. To inform this issue, recent articles have examined the detailed occupations held by graduates of specific disciplines among bachelor’s degree graduates (Frenette and Handler, 2023) and among college or CEGEP certificate or diploma graduates (Frenette and Handler, 2024).
The purpose of this short article is to present results for master’s degree graduates aged 25 to 34 collected on the 2021 Census of Population. Only individuals who worked during the census reference week (May 2 to 8, 2021) and who completed a Canadian master’s degree program are included. Note that the intention is to show the five most prevalent jobs based on the five-digit 2021 National Occupational Classification (NOC 2021) code for each six-digit 2021 Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP 2021) code, but some results had to be suppressed. In these instances, the data were aggregated at higher levels of the NOC 2021 in a sequential manner (four digits, three digits, etc.). While there are plenty of noteworthy results in the tables, the remainder of this article will simply highlight a few key observations. Readers are invited to examine the results based on their specific interests.
For male master’s degree graduates aged 25 to 34 in 2021 (Appendix Table A.1), the academic programs most strongly associated with a specific job include physical therapy/therapist (physiotherapists, 95.8%); structural engineering (civil engineers, 87.3%); occupational therapy/therapist (occupational therapists, 83.9%); advanced legal research/studies, general (lawyers and Quebec notaries, 78.7%); and architecture (architects, 75.2%).
From Appendix Table A.2, the female master’s graduates aged 25 to 34 in 2021 most highly concentrated in specific jobs were all from health and related fields: speech-language pathology/pathologist (audiologists and speech-language pathologists, 96.3%), audiology/audiologist (audiologists and speech-language pathologists, 95.2%), physical therapy/therapist (physiotherapists, 94.0%), occupational therapy/therapist (occupational therapists, 91.3%) and pharmacy (pharmacists, 90.5%).
As was the case with Frenette and Handler (2023, 2024), graduates from most disciplines were dispersed across a wide variety of jobs. Despite this finding, the most prevalent jobs appeared to be related to the discipline in many cases. For example, the most prevalent jobs held by male graduates of business administration and management, general programs, included professional occupations in business management consulting (9.0%); financial and investment analysts (4.5%); corporate sales managers (3.6%); information systems specialists (3.6%); and advertising, marketing and public relations managers (3.5%). The most prevalent jobs for their female counterparts included professional occupations in business management consulting (9.3%); professional occupations in advertising, marketing and public relations (5.6%); financial auditors and accountants (4.6%); advertising, marketing and public relations managers (4.2%); and banking, credit and other investment managers (4.2%).
Female international relations and affairs graduates landed related occupations such as social policy researchers, consultants and program officers (23.3%); program officers unique to government (8.5%); and lawyers and Quebec notaries (8.4%). Similar findings were registered for their male counterparts, as some of their most prevalent jobs included social policy researchers, consultants and program officers (15.3%); economists and economic policy researchers and analysts (8.6%); and program officers unique to government (8.0%).
In some disciplines, only a very small share of graduates landed the most prevalent job. Among men and women, the discipline with the lowest concentration of graduates in the most prevalent job was history, general (7.2% and 7.1% worked as secondary school teachers, respectively).
These findings help high school students understand the type of jobs they might expect to hold at the beginning of their careers if they choose to pursue a master’s degree in a given field of study. They make it clear that in some fields of study, the vast majority of jobs are concentrated in only a few occupations. By contrast, in other fields of study, the jobs one might expect to hold are much more varied and thus more difficult to pin down. |
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| ISSN: | 2563-8955 |