SC Talk: Dwayne Benjamin, Economics, U of T; Provostial Advisor, Reruitment, Enrolment, and Educational Space & Technology   “Labour Market Outcomes of PhD Graduates in Canada: A Closer Look at the CCA’s “Degrees of Success.”

Speaker: Dwayne Benjamin, Economics, U of T; Provostial Advisor, Reruitment, Enrolment, and Educational Space & Technology

Title: “Labour Market Outcomes of PhD Graduates in Canada: A Closer Look at the CCA’s “Degrees of Success.”

Introducer and Host: Linda Hutcheon

Abstract: The Canadian Council of Academies Expert Panel on the Labour Market Transition of PhD Graduates was struck to address the following question: What are the main challenges that PhD students in Canada face in transitioning to the labour market, and how do these differ by field of study? Their final report, Degrees of Success, was released earlier this year. In this talk, I will provide a brief overview of the main findings of the report, with a focus on Chapter 5’s empirical evidence pertaining to labour market outcomes. While there are important questions of context and interpretation, the current state of the PhD labour market can readily be cast in light of the simplest supply and demand framework, supplemented with standard tools of labour economics. The talk will highlight the methodological and data challenges in identifying the “economic returns” to a PhD, and will then turn to an introduction of more detailed research that Boriana Miloucheva and I have started that more closely explores PhD labour market outcomes in Canada and the United States in order to better understand the underlying factors that affect PhD outcomes in Canada. While the focus of the talk will be on the labour market, the subsequent discussion will ideally entail a closer examination of the way we fund and structure PhD education, including how we can best support PhD students.

Biography: Dwayne Benjamin currently serves as Provostial Advisor on Recruitment, Enrolment, and Educational Space & Technology. Starting July 1, 2021, he begins his appointment as Vice Provost, Strategic Enrolment Management.

Professor Benjamin joined the University of Toronto in 1989 after completing his PhD at Princeton. Most recently, he served as Vice-Dean, Graduate Education in the Faculty of Arts & Science from 2017 to 2020. In that capacity, he oversaw the budgetary and programmatic administration of graduate programs hosted in FAS, including the management of domestic and international enrolment levels. Prior to his role as Vice-Dean, Professor Benjamin served as Chair, Associate Chair Undergraduate, and Associate Chair Graduate of the Department of Economics.

Professor Benjamin is a labour economist whose research has evolved to the broader economics of post-secondary education, where there have been strong complementarities between his scholarship and his administrative responsibilities, such as identifying determinants of success in undergraduate economics, and estimating the economic returns of graduate education in Canada and the United States. On the latter topic, he recently completed service on the Canadian Council of Academies’ Expert Panel on the Labour Market Transition of PhD Graduates, contributing to their just-released report, Degrees of Success. He also served on the Provost’s Advisory Group on Faculty Gender Pay Equity.

The link to register is https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=JsKqeAMvTUuQN7RtVsVSEKo-DHaj3xRAluk2q6EEM7NURFVOSlIzQ01SVUZMMVhGS0hYR0VaT0FKRi4u

The deadline to register is the Wednesday of the talk at 8:00am. The Zoom link will be sent to registrants only on the morning of the event.