Healthcare graduates top STEM and business peers for career success among study-to-immigrate cohort
For international students studying in Canada before settling as permanent residents, healthcare has beat out STEM and business for career prospects, according to a recent study published by Statistics Canada.
The study by Youjin Choi and Li Xu found that international student graduates of healthcare programs were far more likely to work in careers aligning with their study programs (had higher “alignment”), compared to graduates of STEM and business and administration programs.
The study also found that alignment was lowest among international students who studied Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) or business and administration-related courses below the bachelor’s degree level.
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In contrast, the degree of alignment was highest for students who studied healthcare-related programs at the bachelor’s level.
Generally, a higher level of education correlated with higher alignment among study-to-immigrate graduates—even more so when they’d earned their highest educational credential in Canada.
The study examined foreign nationals who became permanent residents between 2011 and 2021.
Healthcare graduates see the greatest alignment from study to work
On average, healthcare graduates saw alignment rates 10–20% higher than graduates of other programs.
Business and administration grads saw the lowest alignment rates.
The following tables normalize alignment rates across all levels of study for these programs:
Field of study STEM
Healthcare
Alignment rate 43.0%
56.7%
Even when breaking down the broad STEM study category into constituent specializations, healthcare graduates still saw greater alignment rates on average:
Field of study Science and science technology Engineering and engineering technology Mathematics and computer and information science
Alignment rate 23.9% 47.3% 47.9%
International STEM graduates have greater alignment than Canadian-born STEM graduates
International graduates of STEM programs who gained their highest education credential in Canada had 16% higher alignment than Canadian-born STEM graduates.
In contrast, international graduates of healthcare and of business and administration programs who gained their highest credential in Canada had 8.3% and 7.2% lower alignment than Canadian-born counterparts, respectively.
All levels of education Alignment – highest education in Canada (%)Alignment – Canadian-born postsecondary graduates aged 23 to 41 (%)
STEM 47.9 31.9
Science and science technology 26.9 15.0
Engineering and engineering technology 53.8 40.0
Mathematics and computer and information science 51.3 44.4
Business and administration 37.6 44.8
Health care 57.5 65.8
STEM graduates see strong employment outcomes despite lower alignment rates
Despite having lower alignment rates than healthcare graduates, STEM graduates still saw strong employment outcomes.
STEM grads had the lowest unemployment rate among any of the observed cohorts in the context of the study.
Among those who transitioned to occupations outside their study group (“unaligned graduates”), STEM graduates were also the only cohort to be more likely to work in medium-skilled (TEER* 2 and 3) occupations (12.9%) than in lower-skilled (TEER 4 and 5) occupations (11.5%).
Unaligned healthcare graduates were equally likely to work in high-skilled (TEER 0 and 1) and medium-skilled (TEER 2 and 3) occupations (7.5%), and were slightly more likely than STEM graduates to work in low-skilled (TEER 4 and 5) occupations (12.4%).
*The Training Education Experience and Responsibilities (TEER) system is a part of Canada’s National Occupation Classification (NOC) system for categorizing occupations. TEER 0 is the highest-skilled category (management positions), TEER 1 positions generally require a university degree, and TEER 5 is the lowest-skilled (jobs that require only short-term work demonstration and no formal education).
The following table shows work outcomes by percentage of the entire studied cohort between 2011 and 2021:
Work outcomes STEM total (%)
Healthcare (%)
Did not work in 2020 and 2021 5.3
8.0
STEM 43.0
2.5
STEM-related 4.8
1.0
Business and related (excluding TEER* 4 and 5) 8.5
4.4
Health 2.0
56.7
Other 36.4
27.4
TEER 0 and 1 (high-skill occupations) 11.9
7.5
TEER 2 and 3 12.9
7.5
TEER 4 and 5 (low-skill occupations) 11.5
12.4
Overall field-of-study alignment rate 43.0
56.7
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Unaligned graduates most likely to transition to jobs outside STEM, business, and healthcare
Unaligned graduates were likely to move outside the fields of STEM, business and administration, and healthcare altogether.
This includes 36.4% of STEM grads, 49.3% of Business and administration grads, and 27.4% of Healthcare grads. Between 10-14% of these graduates (depending on field of study) transitioned to TEER* 4 and 5 occupations. These occupations are considered “low-skilled”, which may explain high transition rates due to low barriers to entry to begin work.
Business and administration graduates were the most likely among all three broad study groups to move into “other” occupations that did not align with any of the observed fields of study.
Business-related occupations saw the most transfers from graduates in the other two study groups, with 8.5% of STEM grads and 4.4% of Healthcare grads transitioning to occupations in this field.
Having one’s highest level of education in Canada correlated with higher alignment
Whether a student attained their highest level of education in Canada had a strong positive correlation with their likelihood of working in a related occupation in the country.
This finding held for all fields of study, with varying degrees of influence. Healthcare grads saw the least impact on their likelihood of aligned work based on geography (1.5% increase), while STEM grads saw the greatest increase (+16.2%).
Alignment rates by location of the highest level of educational achievement (inside vs. outside Canada)
Field of studyAlignment – all international student graduates (%)Alignment – highest education in Canada (%)Alignment – highest education outside Canada (%)
STEM 43.0 47.9 31.7
Science and science technology 23.9 26.9 16.9
Engineering and engineering technology 47.3 53.8 32.1
Mathematics and computer and information science 47.9 51.3 40.1
Business and administration 35.2 37.6 29.0
Health care 56.7 57.5 56.0
Higher levels of education correlated with higher alignment
For STEM and for business and administration graduates, a higher level of education in that field correlated with higher alignment.
For healthcare graduates, on the other hand, this was not the case. Healthcare graduates with their highest education at the bachelor’s level had the highest alignment, and alignment was lower for healthcare graduates with education above the bachelor’s level (51.6%).
Alignment rates by level of education:
Field of study Level of study Alignment rate (%)
STEM Below a bachelor’s degree 21.9
Bachelor’s degree 39.6
Above a bachelor’s degree 53.1
Business and
administration Below a bachelor’s degree 19.3
Bachelor’s degree 38.4
Above a bachelor’s degree 44.6
Health care Below a bachelor’s degree 53.8
Bachelor’s degree 62.1
Above a bachelor’s degree 51.6
International student graduates who transitioned to PR had significantly higher alignment rates than immigrants with no Canadian education.
All levels of education Alignment – graduates, highest education in Canada (%)Alignment – graduates, highest education outside Canada (%)Alignment – no Canadian education (%)
STEM 47.9 31.7 30.1
Science and science technology 26.9 16.9 13.7
Engineering and engineering technology 53.8 32.1 31.4
Mathematics and computer and information science 51.3 40.1 39.4
Business and administration 37.6 29.0 25.2
Health care 57.5 56.0 49.3
