Canada's increasing human capital

A marked effort has been made over the past several decades to increase educational attainment at all levels across Canada. Part of that effort has been focused on increasing the share of the Canadian workforce that has completed a university (four-year) degree or higher (master's or doctoral degrees). While the share of the workforce with a BA or above has been increasing, the individual impact from that increase in human capital is less apparent. While overall education levels have increased, wages, in real dollar terms, have remained fairly stagnant. Although this is the case at the overall level, the pattern may be different for subgroups of the Canadian workforce. This paper specifically examines the changing nature and relationships in educational attainment and real wages for immigrants, visible minorities, and women across the Canadian workforce from 1971 to 2006. It also investigates these same relationships for the provinces. The results show that while these groups are more likely to have attained a university degree (this is more recent for women), the wages they receive have consistently remained below the Canadian average. Although human capital has increased, the equity of the returns to human capital has remained unchanged.