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Beyond Graduation: Socio-economic Background and Post-university Outcomes of Australian Graduates

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Abstract

Research consistently shows that higher-education participation has positive impacts on individual outcomes. However, few studies explicitly consider differences in these impacts by socio-economic background (SEB), and those which do fail to examine graduate trajectories over the long run, non-labor outcomes and relative returns. We address these knowledge gaps by investigating the short- and long-term socio-economic trajectories of Australian university graduates from advantaged and disadvantaged backgrounds across multiple domains. We use high-quality longitudinal data from two sources: the Australian Longitudinal Census Dataset and the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey. Low-SEB graduates experienced short-term post-graduation disadvantage in employment and occupational status, but not wages. They also experienced lower job and financial security up to 5 years post-graduation. Despite this, low-SEB graduates benefited more from higher education in relative terms—that is, university education improves the situation of low-SEB individuals to a greater extent than it does for high-SEB individuals.

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Notes

  1. These fixed-effect models are not to be confused with difference-in-difference models (Donald and Lang 2007). Difference-in-difference models compare the pre/post outcomes of a group of individuals exposed to a ‘treatment’ (in our case degree attainment) and a control group of individuals not exposed to the same ‘treatment’. Difference-in-difference models require additional assumptions. This includes the parallel trend assumption—namely that, in the absence of the treatment, differences in outcomes between the treatment and control groups would be constant over time.

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Funding

This study was funded by the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education (NCSEHE) at Curtin University (Grant reference Number RES-51444/CTR-11202).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Social Science Research, The University of Queensland, Long Pocket Precinct, 80 Meiers Road, Indooroopilly, QLD, 4068, Australia

    Wojtek Tomaszewski, Francisco Perales, Ning Xiang & Matthias Kubler

  2. Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Children and Families Over the Life Course, The University of Queensland, Indooroopilly, Australia

    Wojtek Tomaszewski, Francisco Perales, Ning Xiang & Matthias Kubler

Authors
  1. Wojtek Tomaszewski
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  2. Francisco Perales
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  3. Ning Xiang
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  4. Matthias Kubler
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Correspondence to Wojtek Tomaszewski.

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Tomaszewski, W., Perales, F., Xiang, N. et al. Beyond Graduation: Socio-economic Background and Post-university Outcomes of Australian Graduates. Res High Educ 62, 26–44 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-019-09578-4

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