Employment rate between international students from Asia and the Native Students in Canada
International education has emerged as a significant global industry because millions of international students pay fees to foreign institutions (Mazzarol, Hosie & Jacobs, 2006). The international students pay over twice or thrice the amount of money that are paid by the native students. This understanding begs the questions, “What are the competitive advantages that international students have over the native students after they finish high school?” and “If there is no significant competitive advantage, why are more international students learning abroad?” “It is estimated that there will be 1.4 million international students from Asia studying worldwide by 2010, and as many as 2.9 million by 2025” (Blight, 1995, p. 4). This research paper poses the question, which population has the higher employment rate after completing school, the international students or the native students? By surveying literature, collecting data, and performing analysis, this research plans to aid in the understanding of the factors leading to the different employment situations between natives and Asian students. The motivation of the foreign students is the shortage of labor that Canada will face due to declines in demography. Thus, there has been a movement towards reviewing the educational and immigration policies to be able to deal with the situation.
Literature Review
Demographic challenges
Canada, one of the industrialised countries, is faced with declining population growth rates due to lower birthrates and an aging population. The results will be significantly acute labor shortages (Verbik & Lasanowski, 2007). According to McNiven (2008), the workforce available in Canada will be less than the available jobs in the next decade. The declining population has been due to lower fertility rates, outmigration and an aging population. The aging population came about due to the post war baby boom and the bust thereafter. In some parts of Canada, for instance Nova Scotia, the number of people aged 65 years and above will increase by up to 70 % in 2026. The report also indicated that the undergraduate university age populace will decline by around 30 % by 2026 (McNiven, 2008).
Factors influencing the career location of the international students
The choice of where a graduate can start their careers, whether in the host country or their native country is informed by a variety of factors. First, there is the talent citizenship program where the international students are lured by the countries where they studied. The countries are attracted by the high skill levels or the labor talents of the students. Secondly, the choice of where to start a career is also informed by factors such as discrimination, welcome from the community and the network that the students have abroad. The choice is also informed by the nature of the scholarship that sent the students to the foreign country. More returns are often witnessed by those who went through public scholarship rather than private. Moreover, the choice is determined by the nature of the socio-economic structures that are available. When these structures are favorable, the student will have a higher inclination towards staying and starting their careers in the foreign countries (Oh, 1973 as cited in Musumba, Jin & Mjelde, 2011).
Interaction between highly educated native labor and foreign labor
Highly skilled native workers and highly skilled foreign labor are not perfect substitutes. The foreign labor is highly inclined towards providing specialized labor demanding analytical and quantitative skills while the natives are inclined towards jobs requiring communication and interactive skills. Therefore as the numbers of the foreign labor increases, the native labor moves towards professions that require more communication and less of analytical skills (Peri & Sparber, 2011). This arises from the fact that the foreign labor has an imperfect skill in languages, has lack of familiarity with the norms as well as has few networks. The native therefore have a comparative advantage over the foreigners in terms of the jobs that require communication for instance customer service, management and almost all the jobs that require communication. The international students will have the edge in terms of the jobs that require analytical and qualitative works, for instance in engineering and medicine. This point was also supported by Chiswick & Taengnoi (2007 as cited in (Peri & Sparber, 2011).
Different policies have been enacted by different countries so that the number of foreign nationals working in the countries could be reduced. This was the case is the US after the financial meltdown as part of the recovery plans. This is informed by the view that the foreigners are competing with the natives for the various jobs. Therefore, attempts have been made to reduce the numbers of immigrant workers in the different countries.
Current employment situation for international students
The employment rate is defined as the statistical ratio that measures the proportion of the country’s working-age population that is employed. Looking into the field, there are some factors that affect the employment rate for the post-secondary education. The question examines the quality of the graduate students, employment conception and substantial difference. According to Musumba, Jin & Mjelde (2011), Asian international students in traditionally White colleges and universities face difficulty when attempting to acculturate. Many students from minority groups have reported that they have not felt welcomed and have been treated like uninvited guests in Canada. These socialization problems may go along with them after graduation thereby limiting their ability to find jobs. Their lower social ability than that of native students will decrease the employment rate of the international students.
There are also the issues of the levels of expectations especially with regard to the fees that were paid by the international students. The students will expect higher salary jobs due to the fact that they invested higher amounts of money in terms of the double or triple fees as compared to the natives. In financial position, international students spent much more money on tuition fees than native students; they therefore expect the jobs with a higher salary for their employment consideration. However, in this economy, it is difficult to find a job that is correlated with the level of education when graduate students have no work experience or have fewer work experiences, therefore there will be difficulties for the native students to find jobs. The native students also have a higher competitive advantage as compared to the foreign students, especially with regard to the language considerations.
Although international students bring a substantial benefit for the Canadian economy, the future of employment is not certain for the foreign student. This research looks to provide an insight into the vast understanding of the examination of employment rate of international students after they finish the post-secondary education.
Theory and Hypothesis
Theory
The relevant economic theory that will be employed is labor economics, which can help in the understanding of the dynamics and functioning of the markets for labor, especially the interaction between the employees and employers. The theory of labor economics considers issues such as demands for labor services, wage, income and employment patterns, and the supply of the labor (Freeman, 1987).
The important variables of employment in the labor economics theory include the social dimensions that are found in the workplace. This will be important as it will play a part in the decision of the person to remain in the country or not. It will also shape the types of jobs and employment opportunities that a person will seek to find or to be absorbed in. The other important variables that will be considered are the labor market indicators, e.g. the trends in salaries and status. Third, there will be the consideration of the demand for labor in both firms and the whole economy. Moreover, another variable that will be discussed is the motivation of the workers and the efficiency of the wages of the employees that are being offered in the Canadian economy. Another variable that will be considered under the labor economics theory is the compensating wage differentials.
Hypothesis
The paper answers the question, do international students have a higher employment rate than the native students after the completion of their studies or vice versa. This question will be answered through the collection and analysis of data relating to the employment rates between the foreign or international students and the native students. The principal assertion of the paper is that although the foreign students pay higher tuition fees, mostly three times or twice the amount paid by the native students, the native students have a higher employment rate than the international students.
The paper seeks to add a deeper understanding to the knowledge that exists between the employment rates of international students as compared to the native students after they completed their studies. Previous research has profoundly focused on mostly international labor that is unskilled and how it impacts on the employment levels of the native populace. This paper therefore introduces the dimension of equality in skill levels between the natives and the international labor. This is where new parameters such as social connections, language levels and other socio-economic considerations come into play.
The theoretical reasoning of the paper is that due to the differences in the networks and community, there are differences in the employment of the natives and the international students. This therefore leads to separation of most preferred jobs between the natives and the international students. More international students are inclined towards accepting analytical and quantitative jobs while the natives target more of the communicative jobs.
The empirical evidence provided by the author is that language plays a very important role in the choice of jobs and the employment rates of the different employees (Greenlaw, 2005). Evidence provides that majority of the jobs that involve communication are occupied by the native employees.
The author makes a variety of assumptions in the analysis. The first is that the international employees possess language skills that are lower than those of the natives. This can not hold to be true in many instances as there are students who have similar language proficiency as the natives. This can be in the two languages that are commonly used in Canada, that is, French and English. The second assumption is that all students who get through college in the foreign country will be inclined towards landing an employment opportunity. This is also not objective as many international students may want to go back to their countries for a number of reasons.
References
Blight, D. (1995). International education: Australia’s potential demand and supply. Canberra: IDP Education Australia.
Freeman, R.B. (1987). Labour economics. The New Palgrave: a Dictionary of Economics, 3: 72–76.
Greenlaw, S. (2005). Doing economics: a guide to understanding and carrying out economic research. Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Mazzarol, T. W. (1994). A model of sustainable competitive advantage of service exports: the example of Australian education, Institute for Research into International Competitiveness. Perth: Curtin University of Technology, Discussion Paper Series, (94)11.
McNiven, J. D. (2008, December). The developing workforce problem: confronting Canadian labour shortages in the coming decades. Atlantic Institute for Market Studies.
Musumba, M., Jin, Y. & Mjelde, J. (2011). Factors influencing career location preferences of international graduate students in the United States. Education Economics, 19:5, 501-517
Peri, G. & Sparber, C. (2011). Highly educated immigrants and native occupational choice. Industrial Relations, 50(3): 381-411
Verbik, L. & Lasanowski, V. (2007). International student mobility: patterns and trends. London: The Observatory on Borderless Higher Education.
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