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The Employment of the College Graduate: Changing Wages in Mass Higher Education

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Mass Higher Education Development in East Asia

Part of the book series: Knowledge Studies in Higher Education ((KSHE,volume 2))

Abstract

One of the main rationales for emerging economies such as Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia to boost their output of higher education is to provide a highly skillful workforce for upgraded domestic industrial sectors. This discourse justifies the expansion of higher education along with the economic growth. However, few empirical studies have focused on the dynamic relationship between higher education expansion and the changes in graduate wages. The assumption has been that university graduates with higher skills and better professional training would enhance productivity as a whole. Therefore, their wages can be enhanced or, at least, maintained due to higher human capital accumulation. This chapter, using government data for Japan and Taiwan, will examine the macro relationship by juxtaposing the enrollment rate of higher education and real wage from 1990s to 2012. Our findings do not support our hypothesis and indicate that to some extent declining wages can be attributable to the over expansion of higher education enrollment, particularly when it is more than 50 % of the population. This finding has important implications for governments who wish to expand higher education in order to boost their economy.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The website information can be found at http://www.e-stat.go.jp/SG1/estat/List.do?bid=000001033701&cycode=0

  2. 2.

    Respective data are from http://www.mhlw.go.jp/toukei/list/53-1a.html and http://www.mhlw.go.jp/toukei/list/chingin_zenkoku_a.html

  3. 3.

    Information can be found at http://www.e-stat.go.jp/SG1/estat/Xlsdl.do?sinfid=000002028281

  4. 4.

    National Statistics, Taiwan: http://www.stat.gov.tw/public/data/dgbas03/bs3/inquire/cpispleym.xls

  5. 5.

    Council of Labour Affairs: http://statdb.cla.gov.tw/statis/webproxy.aspx?sys=210&kind=21&type=1&funid=q19031&rdm=ffffffff

  6. 6.

    https://stats.moe.gov.tw/files/important/OVERVIEW_Y11.XLS

  7. 7.

    https://stats.moe.gov.tw/files/ebook/indicators/101indicators.xls

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate Institute of Education, National Chung Cheng University, No. 168, Sec. 1, University Rd., Min-Hsiung Township, Chiayi County, 621, Taiwan

    Sheng-Ju Chan & Chi-Hua Yang

Authors
  1. Sheng-Ju Chan
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  2. Chi-Hua Yang
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Correspondence to Sheng-Ju Chan .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Education, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea, Republic of (South Korea)

    Jung Cheol Shin

  2. Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China

    Gerard A. Postiglione

  3. Research Institute for Higher Education, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Hiroshima, Japan

    Futao Huang

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Chan, SJ., Yang, CH. (2015). The Employment of the College Graduate: Changing Wages in Mass Higher Education. In: Shin, J., Postiglione, G., Huang, F. (eds) Mass Higher Education Development in East Asia. Knowledge Studies in Higher Education, vol 2. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12673-9_17

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