IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v18y2021i14p7504-d594240.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What Do Public Health Graduates Do and Where Do They Go? An Analysis of Job Destinations and Mismatch in Australian Public Health Graduates

Author

Listed:
  • Rory David Watts

    (School of Population and Global Health, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia)

  • Devin C. Bowles

    (National Centre for Epidemiology & Population Health, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia)

  • Colleen Fisher

    (School of Population and Global Health, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia)

  • Ian W. Li

    (School of Population and Global Health, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia)

Abstract

Background: It is not well understood what occupations public health graduates have after graduation, nor is it well known whether their education provides them with the relevant knowledge and skills to feel well matched to their occupations. Furthermore, it is commonly presumed that public health graduates work in government, and investments in education would bolster this workforce. Methods: We aimed to describe the common occupations of Australian public health graduates, describe the heterogeneity of graduate destinations, describe the level of mismatch that graduates report, and compare these results with other fields of study. We used eight years of Australian graduate survey data (2008–2015) from the Graduate Destinations Survey, examining outcomes data from 8900 public health graduates from four levels of education. We compared occupation and industry heterogeneity, and level of occupational mismatch between public health graduates, and graduates from other fields of education. Results: Public health graduates report having a broad set of occupations in a broad set of industries after graduation, and this breadth is dissimilar to most health degrees. Furthermore, public health graduates tend to have average or lower-than-average rates of mismatch. Conclusions: Despite going into a broad set of occupations and industries, graduates from public health tend to report being well prepared given their education. Given that both occupation and industry outcomes are heterogeneous for graduates, an investment in public health education does not guarantee an increase in the governmental public health workforce.

Suggested Citation

  • Rory David Watts & Devin C. Bowles & Colleen Fisher & Ian W. Li, 2021. "What Do Public Health Graduates Do and Where Do They Go? An Analysis of Job Destinations and Mismatch in Australian Public Health Graduates," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(14), pages 1-16, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:14:p:7504-:d:594240
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/14/7504/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/14/7504/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Leuven, Edwin & Oosterbeek, Hessel, 2011. "Overeducation and Mismatch in the Labor Market," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 283-326, Elsevier.
    2. Ian W. Li & Mark Harris & Peter J. Sloane, 2018. "Vertical, Horizontal and Residual Skills Mismatch in the Australian Graduate Labour Market," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 94(306), pages 301-315, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jian Zhou & Chuhan Wang & Xinyu Zhang & Shuang Wang, 2022. "Public Health System and Socio-Economic Development Coupling Based on Systematic Theory: Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-14, October.
    2. Kerstin Sell & Franziska Hommes & Florian Fischer & Laura Arnold, 2022. "Multi-, Inter-, and Transdisciplinarity within the Public Health Workforce: A Scoping Review to Assess Definitions and Applications of Concepts," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(17), pages 1-23, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Marco Pecoraro, 2014. "Is There Still a Wage Penalty for Being Overeducated But Well-matched in Skills? A Panel Data Analysis of a Swiss Graduate Cohort," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 28(3), pages 309-337, September.
    2. Eleni Kalfa & Matloob Piracha, 2017. "Immigrants’ educational mismatch and the penalty of over-education," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(5), pages 462-481, September.
    3. Kampelmann, Stephan & Rycx, François, 2012. "The impact of educational mismatch on firm productivity: Evidence from linked panel data," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 918-931.
    4. Marelli Enrico & Sciulli Dario & Signorelli Marcello, 2014. "Skill mismatch of graduates in a local labour market," Экономика региона, CyberLeninka;Федеральное государственное бюджетное учреждение науки «Институт экономики Уральского отделения Российской академии наук», issue 2, pages 181-194.
    5. Domadenik, Polona & Far?nik, Daša & Pastore, Francesco, 2013. "Horizontal Mismatch in the Labour Market of Graduates: The Role of Signalling," IZA Discussion Papers 7527, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Roberto Ganau, 2022. "Institutions and the productivity challenge for European regions," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 22(1), pages 1-25.
    7. Schwientek, Caroline, 2016. "Are immigrants overeducated in Germany? Determinants and wage effects of educational mismatch," FAU Discussion Papers in Economics 07/2016, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Institute for Economics.
    8. Bram Wouterse & Karen Wiel & Marc Steeg, 2017. "Income Differences Between PhDs and Masters: Evidence from The Netherlands," De Economist, Springer, vol. 165(4), pages 439-461, December.
    9. Matloob Piracha & Massimiliano Tani & Florin Vadean, 2012. "Immigrant over- and under-education: the role of home country labour market experience," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 1(1), pages 1-21, December.
    10. Brian Clark & Clément Joubert & Arnaud Maurel, 2017. "The career prospects of overeducated Americans," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 6(1), pages 1-29, December.
    11. Liu, Kai & Salvanes, Kjell G. & Sørensen, Erik Ø., 2016. "Good skills in bad times: Cyclical skill mismatch and the long-term effects of graduating in a recession," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 3-17.
    12. Mendolicchio Concetta & Paolini Dimitri & Pietra Tito, 2012. "Asymmetric Information And Overeducation," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-29, October.
    13. Stefan Jestl & Michael Landesmann & Sandra M. Leitner, 2015. "Migrants and Natives in EU Labour Markets: Mobility and Job-Skill Mismatch Patterns," wiiw Research Reports 403, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    14. Xiangbo Liu & Theodore Palivos & Xiaomeng Zhang, 2017. "Immigration, Skill Heterogeneity, And Qualification Mismatch," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(3), pages 1231-1264, July.
    15. Prateek Kukreja, 2019. "Skill Mismatch and Returns to Education in Manufacturing: A Case of India’s Textile and Clothing Industry," Working Papers id:13003, eSocialSciences.
    16. Matloob Piracha & Florin Vadean, 2013. "Migrant educational mismatch and the labor market," Chapters, in: Amelie F. Constant & Klaus F. Zimmermann (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Migration, chapter 9, pages 176-192, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    17. Floro Ernesto Caroleo & Francesco Pastore, 2018. "Overeducation at a Glance. Determinants and Wage Effects of the Educational Mismatch Based on AlmaLaurea Data," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 137(3), pages 999-1032, June.
    18. Hugh Cassidy & Amanda Gaulke, 2024. "The increasing penalty to occupation‐education mismatch," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 62(2), pages 607-632, April.
    19. Zheng, Yanqiao & Zhang, Xiaoqi & Zhu, Yu, 2021. "Overeducation, major mismatch, and return to higher education tiers: Evidence from novel data source of a major online recruitment platform in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    20. Heba Nassar & Marwa Biltagy, 2017. "Poverty, Employment, Investment, and Education Relationships: The Case of Egypt," SAGE Open, , vol. 7(2), pages 21582440176, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:14:p:7504-:d:594240. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.