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CRJ-INRS symposium on university graduates

Wednesday 4 May 2022
From 8:30AM To 5PM

University Graduates: Socio-economic Perspectives on Graduation, Job Entry and Overqualification.

This colloquium, organized by the Chaire-réseau de recherche sur la jeunesse du Québec and the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS), provided an opportunity to report on current changes in the relationship between the university education system and the labour market based on recent data and unpublished analyses.

Conference program

In Quebec and in Canada, political leaders and heads of academic institutions are proclaiming in various forums that the number of highly educated people must be increased, with the avowed goal of fostering a positive economic dynamic and maintaining the competitiveness of our economies on a global scale. Other social actors, including civil society organizations, support the expansion of university education for economic reasons, but also to preserve and enhance the ideal of equal opportunity that allows for the social advancement of individuals and upward intergenerational mobility. Economic logic supports these positions, which are as much about collective benefits as they are about the private interests of individuals. University graduates, the main category of highly skilled labour, are the engine of economic innovation and a recruitment pool for the most complex jobs created by the knowledge economy and producing entrepreneurs, themselves a source of opportunities for other categories of labour.

However, a less optimistic narrative derived from research data reveals that, despite the indisputable benefits, university education is not equally accessible to all, and university graduates face numerous difficulties in terms of access to education, insertion into the labour market, and matching their training to the jobs they hold.

 

 

Brahim Boudarbat

A CIRANO Researcher and Fellow since 2004, Brahim Boudarbat is Full Professor in the School of Industrial Relations of the Université de Montréal. He is also Director of the Observatoire de la Francophonie économique de l'Université de Montréal, a Fellow of the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) and a member of the Expert Committee of the Labour Market Information Council.

Holding a Ph.D. in Economics from the Université de Montréal, he is interested in issues related to immigration, post-secondary education, income inequality and working conditions of Canadians. In particular, his research interests and work focus on the integration of immigrants into the labour market in Quebec and Canada, career choices by young Canadians, income distribution, income gaps between men and women, the return on education, overqualification in the job, the use of languages at work and their remuneration in Quebec, the brain drain, indicators of job quality. He is also interested in the education and vocational training systems and youth employment in Morocco.

Brahim Boudarbat is the author of numerous articles and reports on the labour market. He has conducted studies for several organizations, including the Quebec Ministry of Immigration, Diversity and Inclusion, Emploi-Québec, the Commission des partenaires du marché du travail (Quebec) and Human Resources and Skills Development Canada. He also participated in the drafting of the 2016 Arab Human Development Report for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

Prior to his current position, Brahim Boudarbat was a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of British Columbia (UBC). He was also Director of the Data Centre of the Université de Montréal, a member organization of the Quebec Inter-University Centre for Social Statistics (QICSS). From 1991 to 1998, Brahim Boudarbat was responsible for employment policies and the monitoring of the professional integration of graduates within the Ministry of Vocational Training in Morocco.

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Sylvain Bourdon

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Pierre Doray

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Charles Fleury

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Pierre-Canisius Kamanzi

Pierre-Canisius Kamanzi is Professor at the Université de Montréal.

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Marie-Pierre Lapointe-Garant

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Mathieu Lizotte

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Stéphane Moulin

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Eddy Supeno

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François Vaillancourt

A CIRANO Researcher and Fellow since 2004, François Vaillancourt is Emeritus Professor in the Department of Economics at the Université de Montréal.

Holder of a PhD in economics from Queen's University (1978), he published over 300 texts, particularly on intergovernmental financial relations, the complexity and impact of Canadian taxation, the cost-effectiveness of linguistic studies and attributes, and the economics of language policies.

Named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2009, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Geneva in 2021 for his work on the economics of language issues. Over his career, he has been a Fulbright Canadian Research Scholar in Kennesaw (2007) and a Shastri Lecturer in India (1993). He has been a visiting professor/researcher at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies in Atlanta (2007 and 2009), FUCaM (Mons, Belgium, 2006), École Normale Supérieure de Cachan (Paris, 2006 and 2008), the University of Toronto (1991) and the Australian National University (1991). He was also research coordinator for the MacDonald Commission (1983-1986) and associate editor of Canadian Public Policy-Analyse de Politiques (1986-1995). He has acted as a consultant for various national (including CIDA, House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance, Commission Séguin, Law Reform Commission of Canada, Conseil de la Fédération, Conseil de la langue française du Québec, CSST, Finance Canada, Forum of Federations, Federal Expert Panel on Equalization Reform, Institut Fraser, Office de la langue française, Statistics Canada and the Auditor General of Canada and Quebec) and international organizations (AFD, World Bank, IMF, OECD, UNDP). He has worked in 35 countries/entities on issues of regional and local financial resources (taxation, transfers) and provided training in this field for the African Tax Institute, the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, the World Bank, the IMF, and the Hague Academy for Local Governance.

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Mircea Vultur

A CIRANO Researcher and Fellow since 2013, Mircea Vultur is Full Professor at the Urbanisation Culture Société Research Centre of the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS).

He is also Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Université Laval, co-responsible for the International Research Committee on the Sociology of Work affiliated with the International Association of French-Speaking Sociologists and responsible for the Work and Professional Integration axis at the Observatoire Jeunes et Société.

Holding a Ph.D. in Sociology from Université Laval, his current research focuses on the professional integration of university graduates and the phenomenon of overqualification.

He has been a visiting professor at several European and South American universities (Université Paris-Dauphine, Université de Bretagne Occidentale, UniLaSalle, Université d'Aix-Marseille, Université de Luxembourg, Federal University of Santa Catarina, University of Porto Alegre).

He is the author or coordinator of eight books including La signification du travail (2010 prize of the Fédération francophone des affaires). Among his latest books: La surqualification au Québec et au Canada (dir., Québec, PUL, 2014) and Les agences de travail temporaire : leur rôle et leur fonctionnement comme intermédiaires du marché du travail (codir. J. Bernier, Québec, PUL, 2014).

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