Event Date: Thursday, March 14, 2019
Refugees and Canadian Post-Secondary Education: Characteristics and Economic Outcomes in Comparison
Elena Prokopenko
Thursday, March 14
4:00 pm
SSC 6210
This study draws on data from the Longitudinal Immigration Database to examine participation in Canadian post-secondary education (PSE) among adult immigrants in the 2002-2005 landing cohort, with an explicit focus on resettled refugees. The study describes the demographic characteristics of participants, the characteristics of participation, and the economic returns on investment in Canadian PSE. It also employs multivariate regression analysis to further examine the effects of participation in Canadian PSE on employment incidence and the income of those employed, while controlling for other factors associated with successful economic integration.
Elena Prokopenko has been working to understand Canadian society since immigrating with her family at age 9, eventually making it her actual profession. Completing the International Baccalaureate in Ottawa, she went on to study sociology and psychology at McGill, and focused on quantitative analysis at the intersection of gender, work and migration during her M.A. at the University of Toronto. After graduation she applied these skills to her work with Dr. Michael Haan, and entered the EC Recruitment and Development Program at Statistics Canada already familiar with their data holdings thanks to her applied research with Dr. Haan at StatCan’s Research Data Centres. Elena has contributed to a number of technical and analytical reports focusing on administrative immigration data, and is currently conducting analyses on assignment with the Office of the Secretary to the Governor General.