RESEARCH INNOVATION AND EXPANSION FUND Lost talent? The occupational ambitions and attainments of young Australians JOANNA SIKORA LAWRENCE J SAHA Lost talent? The occupational ambitions and attainments of young Australians PRINT IN COLOUR FOR CLARITY Joanna Sikora Lawrence J. Saha AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY The views and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author/project team and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Government, state and territory governments or NCVER. Any interpretation of data is the responsibility of the author/project team. Publisher’s note Additional information relating to this research is available in Concern about lost talent: support document. It can be accessed from NCVER’s website <http://www.ncver.edu.au/publications/2313.html>. To find other material of interest, search VOCED (the UNESCO/NCVER international database <http://www.voced.edu.au>) using the following keywords: career goal; career planning; decision making; educational level; educational opportunity; employment; gender; higher education; socioeconomic background; students; vocational education and training; youth. © Commonwealth of Australia, 2011 This work has been produced by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) on behalf of the Australian Government and state and territory governments, with funding provided through the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of this publication may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Requests and inquiries concerning reproduction and rights should be addressed to the Commonwealth Copyright Administration, Attorney-General’s Department, Robert Garran Offices, National Circuit, Barton ACT 2600 or posted at <http://www.ag.gov.au/cca>. The views and opinions expressed in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Government, state and territory governments or NCVER. ISBN 978 1 921809 55 2 web edition TD/TNC 102.37 Published by NCVER ABN 87 007 967 311 Level 11, 33 King William Street, Adelaide SA 5000 PO Box 8288 Station Arcade, Adelaide SA 5000, Australia ph +61 8 8230 8400 fax +61 8 8212 3436 email [email protected] <http://www.ncver.edu.au> <http://www.ncver.edu.au/publications/2313.html> About the research Lost talent? The occupational ambitions and attainments of young Australians Joanna Sikora and Lawrence J. Saha Given ongoing interest in increasing productivity and participation in the workforce, understanding when talent is lost is a useful exercise. The term ‘lost talent’ describes the underutilisation or wastage of human potential. Focusing on young people, Sikora and Saha define lost talent as occurring when students in the top 50% of academic achievement lower their educational or occupational expectations or fail to achieve their educational or occupational plans. Using data spanning a ten-year period from the 1998 cohort of the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY98), the authors examine academic achievement in Year 9, educational and occupational expectations while at school, and educational and occupational attainment by age 25 years to determine the extent to which talent loss is occurring. The general relationships between occupational expectations and attainment are also examined to see whether ambitious career plans lead to higher-status employment. Key messages  The proportion of high-achieving individuals who represent talent loss is low but not negligible, with approximately 15% lowering their educational and occupational expectations. Factors associated with decreasing expectations included low socioeconomic status, being male, having low personal assessment of academic ability and low satisfaction with school.  Having ambitious occupational plans is important, with a strong relationship found between holding these plans and having a professional or managerial job by the age of 25 years. Not having a career plan can be detrimental to later occupational attainment— more so for young women.  Students’ occupational expectations are significantly less gender-segregated than the labour market they eventually enter. Tom Karmel Managing Director, NCVER Contents Tables and figures 6
 Executive summary 8
 Introduction 11
 Lost talent 11
 Research questions: lost talent and expectations versus attainment 14
 Data and methods 15
 Methods 15
 Results 16
 Prevalence and determinants of talent loss 16
 Stability of occupational plans in high school 23
 Are plans and attainments gender-typed? 26
 Occupational plans and career entry 33
 Does ‘not having’ career plans in high school matter? 38
 Discrepancy between educational and occupational plans 41
 Summary and conclusions 43
 References 46
 Support document details 48
 Appendices A 49
 B 50
 C 57
 D 58
 E 63
 NCVER 5 Tables and figures Tables 1
 Logistic regression predicting talent loss: lowered occupational expectations and lowered educational expectations 22
 2
 Expected occupations of students in 1999 and 2001 by ASCO 2 major group 23
 3
 Stability of occupational expectations over time, top 50% students 24
 4
 Changes in status of expected professional and managerial occupations between 1999 and 2001, top 50% of students 25
 5
 Gender segregation of expectations and attainments 29
 6
 Modal expected occupations (ASCO 2) by gender 31
 7
 OLS regression predicting plans to enter a male-dominated or female-dominated occupation (indicators of gender imbalance) 32
 8
 Descriptive statistics: LSAY person-year data 1999–2008 34
 9
 Influence of occupational expectations on attainment: 1999–2008, all employment 35
 10
 Influence of occupational expectations on attainment: 1999–2008, career employment 36
 11
 Lack of occupational expectations in adolescence and its effect on occupational attainment, all employment 39
 12
 Lack of occupational expectations in adolescence and its effect on occupational attainment, career employment 40
 13
 Occupational expectations and intentions to study at university 41
 14
 Inconsistency between educational and occupational plans and its effect on the likelihood of university completion and occupational status 42
 A1
 Y98 Year 9 cohort: respondents by wave 49
 B1
 OLS regression predicting occupational expectations of students in 1999 and 2001 55
 C1
 Stability of occupational expectations over time, all students 57
 C2
 Changes in status of expected occupations between 1999 and 2001, all students 57
 D1
 Modal occupational attainments (ANZSCO) by gender 58
 D2
 Modal expected occupations in 2001 (ASCO 2) by gender 61
 D3
 Expected occupations in 1999 and ‘accommodation rates’ in Australia for 25 to 35-year-olds in 1996 and 2006 62
 E1
 Example of a wide longitudinal data file 63
 E2
 Example of a long longitudinal data file 63
 6 Lost talent? The occupational ambitions and attainments of young Australians Figures 1
 Prevalence of talent loss according to four different definitions 17
 2
 Lowered educational expectations by parents’ socioeconomic status 18
 3
 Lowered occupational expectations by parents’ socioeconomic status 19
 4
 Lowered educational expectations by gender 20
 5
 Lowered occupational expectations by gender 20
 6
 Comparison between student expectations and labour market composition by gender 28
 B1
 Lowered educational expectations by academic achievement 50
 B2
 Lowered occupational expectations by academic achievement 51
 E1
 Distributions of occupational attainments and expectations in ANU_4 or AuSEI06 scores 65
 NCVER 7 Executive summary The definition of lost talent ‘Lost talent’ is a long-established term which describes the concept of the underutilisation or ‘wastage’ of human potential. Over time, however, the concept has been used to describe—at least empirically—four different processes in the transition of youth to adulthood, and specifically those related to educational and occupational attainments. In this report, we follow Hanson (1994), and make use of the term ‘lost talent’ to refer to high- achieving students who, over time, do not maintain their high level of educational and occupational expectations and attainments. Prior literature assumed that talent loss occurs when students in the top 50% of the academic achievement distribution: lower their educational expectations; lower their occupational expectations; fail to realise their educational plans; or fail to realise their occupational plans. This study focuses specifically on the lowering of occupational expectations during secondary school. Our main interest is to establish whether ambitious occupational career plans help an early entry to high-status employment. We have chosen to focus on this area because of the shortage of Australian studies assessing the impact of occupational expectations on labour market outcomes. Data This report uses data from the 1998 cohort of the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY). A representative sample of secondary education students, nationally stratified by state and sector of schooling, was first surveyed in 1998 when they were 14 years old. The students completed a numeracy and literacy test, as well as a survey with questions about their families, experiences, attitudes to school and expectations. They were then surveyed each year until 2008. Findings The extent and determinants of lost talent The proportion of LSAY respondents who represent ‘talent loss’ is low, although not negligible.  About 15% of the top students changed their occupational expectations from highly skilled destinations to careers which required on-the-job training and less formal training. In this report highly skilled employment is defined as falling into major group 1 or 2 of the second edition of the Australian Standard Classification of Occupations (ASCO 2; ABS 1997b).  Approximately 15% of students who ‘showed early signs of talent’; that is, who were in the top 50% of academic achievers in their age group, abandoned their initial plans to complete university.  All else being equal, students who came from lower socioeconomic backgrounds were significantly more likely to lower their educational and occupational expectations.  Male students, as well as those with a low assessment of their academic ability, were more likely to lower their occupational expectations. 8 Lost talent? The occupational ambitions and attainments of young Australians