Student mobility and labour market outcomes

Jannecke Wiers-Jenssen, NIFU STEP

(Norwegian institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education)

Student mobility is important for a number of reasons•Knowledge transfer, knowledge exchange•Academic cooperation, quality enhancement•Increasing language skills and cultural skills•Developing mutual understanding, European integration

Student mobility is mainly addressed by•Counting number of students•Evaluating exchange programmes (ERASMUS)•A underlying notion that mobility is an advantage per se

Measuring impacts of student mobility is challenging task

Addressing student mobility

There appears to be little systematic or detailed enquiry/evidence about how mobility enhances the employability of the individual - what employment might they otherwise not have obtained

The added value of mobility – A review of the literature (Technopolis group 2009)

Survey among graduates focusing on transition from higher education to work

Comparing mobile to non mobile students

Data collected in four countries/autonomous regions •Finland•Norway•Iceland•Faroe Islands

Initiated and financed by the public student banks/funds in the respective countries

Data collected 2007

Nordic Graduate Survey 2007

Retrospective perspective (approx. 3 years after graduation)

Allows us to compare mobile and non-mobile students

Allows us to compare different types of mobile students(degree students vs. exchange students)

Allows us to compare mobile students from different Nordic countries

What makes the Nordic graduate survey unique?

1111 Mobile students with diploma from abroad DEGREE STUDENTS

517 mobile students with diplomas from Norway EXCHANGE STUDENTS

643 Students with the entire degree from NorwayNON-MOBILE STUDENTS

Four educational groups• Business and administration• Technology and science• Social sciences• Journalism/media

Sample drawn from the customer database of the State Educational Loan Fund (NSELF), Lånekassen

Data collected and analysed by NIFU STEP

The Norwegian part of Nordic Graduate Survey 2007

Long traditions with student mobility

Student mobility: deliberate political strategy to compensate for limited domestic enrolment capacity

High proportion of student body abroad

Higher Education and financing:• Most HEIs are public• No tuition fees in public HEIs• Student support: Subsidised loans and grants available trough

the State Educational Loan fund• Student support is universal, not means tested• Mobile students receive support on the same conditions as non-

mobile students + support to cover parts of tuition fees, travel costs etc.

Context: Student mobility from Norway

Graduates’ background

The transition from HE to work• Job search• Unemployment history

Job situation 3 years after graduation• Employment status• Wages• Skills-mismatch• “International job”

Retrospective perspectives on outcome of HE from abroad• Professional outcomes• Personal outcomes

Results to be presented

Social origin: higher among mobile than non-mobile students

Exchange students have better school performance (upper secondary school) than other groups

More mobile than non-mobile students have • Prior experience with living abroad• Parents who have lived abroad

Graduates’ background

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Graduate lived abroad >6 months prior to

study sojourn

Graduate born abroad Father and/or mother lived abroad >6 months

Father and/or mother born abroad

Degree students

Exchange students

Non-mobile

Mobility capital - aspects

NORWEGIAN GRADUATES

Degree students 18

Exchange students 6

Non-mobile 2

DEGREE STUDENTS – OTHER NORDIC COUNTIRES

Finland: 43

Faroe Islands: 56

Iceland: 16

Proportion of graduates working abroad (approx. 3 years after graduation)

Do mobile students return from abroad?

DEGREE STUDENTS….. send more applications in order to obtain their first job

use a wider range of channels to obtain a job

make less use of professional contacts, and more use of personal contacts to get a job

are more likely to be unemployed in the first months after graduation

In sum: Degree student struggle more to get access to the labour market.

Exchange students do not encounter more problems than non-mobile students

Transition from HE to work

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

First phase aftergraduation

Any time aftergraduation

At the time of thesurvey (2007)

Degreestudents

Exchangestudents

Non-mobile

Unemployment in different phases

Degree students

Exchange students

Non-mobile

Employed 90.7 93.6 92.4

Student 4.4 3.9 3.0

Unpaid domestic work 0.8 0.2 0.2

Unemployed 2 0.4 2

Other 2.1 1.9 2.5

Sum 100 100 100

Main activity 3 years after graduation

0

5000

10000

15000

20000

25000

30000

35000

40000

Business andadministration

Technologyand science

Socialsciences

Journalism andmedia

Total

Freemovers

Exchangestudents

Non-mobile

Average monthly wages November 2007. NOK.Full time employment, working in Norway

Now we will look at another classic indicatior of labour market succes of failure: Skills-mismatch

Definition of over education: to have a job that requires education at a lower level than the degree the graduate holds.

Over-Education is more prevalent among degree students

Increased probability of over-education persist when we control for a lot of variables in multivariate analyses.

We saw that unemployment did not have a lasting effectBut over-education is a phenomenon that seem to be more persistent

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

Business andadministration

Technologyand science

Socialsciences

Journalismand media

Total

Degreestudents

Exchangestudents

Non-mobile

Skills-mismatch: Over-education

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

Head office outsideNorway

Head office in Norway,branch office abroad

Business travel abroad

Degreestudents

Exchangestudents

Non-mobile

International firm and business travel

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Telephone,direct contact

Email, letters Readingspecialistliterature

Writing notes,reports etc

Presentations,conferences

meetings

Informal contactwith colleagues

Degreestudents

Exchangestudents

Non-mobile

Use of foreign language for professional purposeson a weekly basis

0

0,5

1

1,5

2

2,5

3

3,5

4

degr

eest

udet

s

exch

ange

stud

ents

non-

mob

le

degr

eest

uden

ts

exch

ange

stud

ents

non-

mob

le

degr

eest

uden

ts

exch

ange

stud

ents

non-

mob

ile

degr

eest

uden

ts

exch

ange

stud

ents

non-

mob

ile

Business & administration Science & technology Social sciences Journalism & media

International job - index

Getting an interesting job

Getting a well paid job

Get a job relevant to my degree

Possibility for working abroad

-30

-20

-10

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70 Degreestudents,higher

Degreestudents,lower

Exchangestudents,higher

Exchangestudents,lower

Outcome, compared to expectations 1

Learn foreign languages Apply foreign

languages for prof. purposes

Learn to know foreign culture &

society Apply knowledge about foregin

culture & society for prof. purposes

-30

-20

-10

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70 Degreestudents,higher

Degreestudents,lower

Exchangestudents,higher

Exchangestudents,lower

Outcome, compared to expectations 2

Degree students

Exchange students

HE-to-work transition - (+)

Wages + (+)

Over-education - +

International job + +

Outcome compared to expectations

+ +

Outcomes of study abroad – enhanced opportunites?

POSITIVE EFFECTS

Country-specific and transnational human kapital

Selectivity: Mobile students may constitute a selected group regarding more indicators than we have measured here

NEGATIVE EFFECTS

Employer sceptisism (homosocial reproduction)

Weaker professional networks

Absence of relevant country-specific human capital

Suggested explanations of the results

There are positive as well as negative labour market effects of student mobility • Degree students encounter some difficulties entering the labour

market, but receive higher economic returns• Exchange students do not seem to face more barriers than non-

mobile students• Both groups of mobile students have more international jobs than

non-mobile students There are reasons to question that student mobility enhances

individual career opportunities in the first years after graduation Student mobility have more effects than we have measured here

• Personal value• Effects on HEIs and society

Concluding remarks

Wiers-Jenssen, J. (2008) “Career Impacts of Student Mobility”. I Gornitzka, A. and L. Langfeldt (ed.); Borderless knowledge. New York: Springer.

Wiers-Jenssen, J. (2008): Does Higher Education Attained Abroad Lead to International Jobs? Journal of Studies in International Education 101-130.

Wiers-Jenssen J. and S. Try (2005): Labour market outcomes of higher education undertaken abroad. Studies in Higher Education 681-705.

Wiers-Jenssen, J. (2003): Norwegian Students abroad: experiences of students from a linguistically and geographically peripheral European Country. Studies in Higher Education 391-411.

Other publications in English on Student mobility from Norway