Brandonites’ level of education rises

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This article was published 30/11/2017 (2896 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The percentage of Brandonites getting an education has been on a gradual incline over the past decade.

Last year, 85.2 per cent of Brandon’s core working population — those aged 25 to 64 — had earned a high school diploma or equivalency certificate, up from 78.4 per cent in 2006.

The number of people in Brandon with a bachelor’s degree or higher level of education jumped to 21.2 per cent, up 2.2 per cent from 2006. College education also increased, from 21 per cent 10 years ago to 23.6 per cent in 2016.

“Education is a key determinant in many elements of our community, both economic and social,” Mayor Rick Chrest said. “I’m very pleased to see Brandon’s levels of education rising at all levels, which will lead to a stronger community in the long run.”

Statistics Canada issued its sixth and final batch of 2016 census numbers Wednesday, which included data on education, labour, journey to work, language of work and mobility and migration. The data being looked at for this article is Brandon’s census agglomeration, which includes the city and surrounding municipalities.

The most popular bachelor’s degree in Brandon was education, followed by health professions. The top college field was business/marketing, followed by health programs. In the apprenticeship or trades category, mechanic and repair technologies was No. 1, followed by construction and culinary services.

Nearly 27 per cent of men aged 25 to 64 with a bachelor’s degree studied science, technology, engineering or mathematics, compared with 10.7 per cent of women. More than 89 per cent of these women studied in fields of business, humanities, health, arts and social sciences, compared with 73 per cent of men.

While it is good to see the growth Brandon has experienced in the education category, Assiniboine Community College president Mark Frison said we still have a fair way to go “to bridge the gap between what the economy is demanding in terms of skills, and what we are producing in terms of graduates.”

Among the provinces, the four largest ones — Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec — along with Nova Scotia, had the highest proportions of the adult populationwith a bachelor’s degree or higher. The highest proportions of the population with a college diploma were found in the four Atlantic provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

“I think the most important thing to recognize here is that Manitoba has the lowest education attainment rate in the country,” Frison said. “So it’s absolutely imperative that we get more folks to attend college and university… We need about three-quarters of the population to be getting a college or university education. The higher we can get those numbers, the more competitive our economy is going to be.”

Frison also notes that the way Statistics Canada gathers some education information has a few quirks. For example, if an individual earns a university degree, as well as a college diploma, it would only show up in the university degree category.

“It doesn’t capture all of the education,” Frison said. “It captures what StatsCan has determined is somehow a hierarchy.”

When it comes to Brandon’s labour force, employment rates have gone down slightly in the past 10 years. In 2016, in the age group of 25 to 64, it was listed at 79.3 per cent, compared to 81.1 per cent in 2006.

The industries with the highest percentage of the labour force include health care/social assistance (16.5 per cent), retail trade (12.6 per cent), manufacturing (10.5 per cent), public administration (9.6 per cent), educational services (7.8 per cent) and accommodation/food services (7.8 per cent).

The vast majority of those in Brandon’s labour force (81 per cent) drive themselves to work in a personal vehicle, while seven per cent are passengers.

Just over four per cent take public transit, while 6.3 per cent walk to work and 0.9 per cent bike to work.

The average commuting time for workers in the Brandon CA is 15.2 minutes, compared to the provincial average of 22.4. The Canadian average is 26.2 minutes.

To compare, the average commute in Toronto takes 34 minutes, 24 minutes in Winnipeg, and 19.7 minutes in Saskatoon.

A significant portion of Brandonites leave for work between 7 a.m. and 7:59 a.m. (30.7 per cent), while 22.8 per cent leave between 8 a.m. and 8:59 a.m. and 15.5 per cent leave between 6 a.m. and 6:59 a.m.

The data released Wednesday show more than half of Canada’s core working population have earned degrees or diplomas from a college or university, the highest rate among comparable OECD countries, a group that includes the United States.

When it comes to educational laurels, women appear to be closing the gap with men: They accounted for half of all master’s degrees in 2016, and nearly half of all earned doctorates among younger Canadians aged 25 to 34.

The wage gap, however, persists. In Saskatchewan, for instance, a male with an apprenticeship certificate enjoyed a median income of $86,059, roughly $13,000 more than a female with a university degree.

Statistics Canada has been releasing census data since February, in an effort to illustrate how life has evolved since 2011 for Canada’s 35.15 million people.

There are more people over 65 than under 15 in a historic grey shift; immigrants are driving population and workforce growth; there are more Indigenous Peoples than ever, and on average they’re younger than the rest of Canada; and young Canadians are living at home longer.

So where do we go from here?

The percentage of the population over 65 is expected to grow from 16.9 per cent to 23 per cent by 2031, while the proportion of children under age 15 flatlines and the ranks of the working-age population shrink.

Older Canadians are lingering longer in the workforce, some because they can, others because they must.

Wednesday’s numbers show a 31 per cent spike in the number of health workers since 2006 — a good thing, given the aging baby boomers, said Julien Picault, a senior economics instructor at University of British Columbia.

“It’s not a crucial point, I think, at this stage, but it’s crucial that we start actually adapting.”

Replacing retiring workers will depend on immigrants, who are driving population growth in the face of low fertility rates. The proportion of immigrants in the population could reach 30 per cent by 2036, up from the 21.9 per cent recorded in 2016.

Those coming to Canada are highly educated — they have rates of post-secondary education more than double their Canadian-born counterparts — and already comprise half or nearly half the labour force in major centres like Toronto and Vancouver.

» jaustin@brandonsun.com, with files from the Canadian Press

» Twitter: @jillianaustin