The Determinants of University Participation in Canada - Volume 39 - Abstract

Oct 15, 2026

The decision to attend university in Canada is shaped by a broad combination of economic and non-economic influences. The study links university participation over 1977–2003 to factors affecting affordability, including family characteristics such as parental education levels. It assesses the relative importance of these variables across available data and evaluates long-run trends, especially the increasing likelihood of young women compared with young men to enroll in university.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages24

Reading Time1 h 0 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Study focus and policy relevance

CSSHE SCÉES Canadian Journal of Higher Education Revue canadienne d’enseignement supérieur Volume 39, No. 2, 2009, pages 1-24 [www.ingentaconnect.com/content/csshe/cjhe](www.ingentaconnect.com/content/csshe/cjhe) The Determinants of University Participation in Canada (1977–2003) Louis N. Christoﬁdes Universities of Cyprus and Guelph Michael Hoy University of Guelph Ling Yang Independent Researcher, Toronto ABSTRACT The decision to attend university is inﬂuenced by a large set of factors, ranging from economic considerations that affect affordability to family characteristics such as parental education levels. We examine the relationship between university participation and various economic and non-economic variables over the past twenty-ﬁve years in Canada. We quantify the importance of the various factors in the data sets available to us in order to understand trends in university participation and, in particular, to take account of the increasingly greater propensity of young women than men to attend university. RÉSUMÉ Toute une gamme de nombreux facteurs inﬂuencent la décision de suivre des cours à l’université ; des facteurs allant des considérations économiques impactant la capacité ﬁnancière jusqu’aux caractéristiques familiales telle que le niveau de scolarité des parents. Nous avonsexaminé la relation existant entre la participation à l’université et plusieurs variables économiques et non économiques sur une période des dernières 25 années au Canada. Nous avons quantiﬁé l’importance de plusieurs facteurs trouvés dans les bases de données nous étant disponibles. Nous voulions comprendre les tendances portant sur 2 CJHE / RCES Volume 39, No. 2, 2009 la participation à l’université, et en particulier la tendance récentedémontrant qu’un plus grand nombre de jeunes femmes que d’hommes choisissent de suivre des cours universitaires. INTRODUCTION Governments typically play signiﬁcant roles in shaping a country’s postsecondary education (PSE) system, and this is certainly the case in Canada. Policy is generally driven by both equity and efﬁciency concerns. A more highly educated workforce has clear economic advantages for both individuals and the country at large. Accessibility to PSE from all segments of society is also considered desirable from an equity perspective, as is a fair method of assigning the cost of education across participants and non-participants. Consider, for example, the government’s involvement with setting or inﬂuencing tuition levels. Since children of families with higher income tend to use the PSE system with greater frequency, shifting the cost of post-secondary education from tuition fees to government subsidization is often thought to be a regressive policy. On the other hand, high tuition fees may restrict access, especially for children from low-income families. Moreover, it is often argued that it is difﬁcult for students to borrow at a time when they have little collateral to offer as a guarantee of repayment and that government-sponsored student loans are typically only accessible for a fraction of students. Thus, increasing the cost of education through higher tuition fees can lead to too few people obtaining high skill levels through university education. Any positive externalities ﬂowing from post-secondary education, such as improved citizenship, would exacerbate a concern with higher tuition fees. In this article, we examine the factors that inﬂuence individual decisions to obtain post-secondary education in order to provide important input into the public-policy discussions that shape the extent to and the manner in which governments should ﬁnance higher learning. We shed light on such issues by considering various factors that have inﬂuenced university attendance in Canada over the period from 1977 to 2003. In particular, we show that government policies that lead to higher tuition fees may well have negative consequences for university attendance. Oth

FAQs

What factors influence university participation in Canada according to the abstract?

University attendance is influenced by many variables, including affordability-related economic considerations and family characteristics such as parental education levels.

Which time period does the study analyze for university participation?

The study examines the relationship between university participation and related variables over the past twenty-five years in Canada, specifically covering 1977–2003.

What trend is highlighted regarding differences between young women and men?

The analysis accounts for an increasingly greater propensity of young women than men to attend university.

Oct 15, 2026

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