The Growth of the Canadian Education System: An Analysis of Transition Probabilities

Abstract

Canada is shown, in a comparison with 23 other industrialized nations, to have distinctively low rates of school attendance from age seventeen onwards. Closely comparable data from a Canadian and an American national survey make a detailed comparison of the two nations possible. There has been a strong trend towards virtually universal completion of grade and high school in the U.S. Canada has followed this trend at the lower levels, but retains a low rate of secondary school completion. Rates of attending post-secondary and post-graduate training show little trend in either country. The "transition probability" analysis, in which each level of schooling is examined separately, is further pursued in an assessment of the effects of social background factors, called "ascription," upon progress through the system. Background factors are found to have generally weaker effects upon higher levels of education in Canada, as in the U.S. They are especially weak at the crucial point, the completion of high school, showing that social background is not a significant element in the creation of Canada's high rates of dropping out of high school. The overall effects of background seem higher in Canada, and especially so for females.