Australian Social Trends Podcast
Episode 15 – Hitting the Books: Characteristics of
Higher Education students
Highlights from an article of the same name from the
July 2013 issue of Australian Social Trends.
TRANSCRIPT
Jane :
Hello listeners and welcome to the 15th episode of the Australian Social
Trends podcast series, brought to you by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
My name's Jane, and Guin has joined me here today in the studio to discuss
the characteristics of higher education students, based on an article from
the July issue of Australian Social Trends.
How are you going today, Guin ?
Guin:
I'm well, thanks Jane. And you?
Jane:
I’m well too, thanks. Ok, so just a quick recap of what’s been happening
lately in the Australian Social Trends series:
In September we released a podcast on Same-sex couples, the first
podcast based on the July 2013 AST articles. If you are interested in
listening to this or any other AST podcast, you can access them on our
website, www.abs.gov.au and they can also be accessed on iTunes.
So, today we’re looking at higher education students in Australia – who they
are and what they do?
Guin:
That’s right Jane – we’re looking at things like work, living arrangements,
what people study, and even things like their health.
Jane:
Great, let’s get into it. First of all Guin, what do we mean when we say
‘higher education students’?
Guin:
Well Jane, for this article we looked at people aged between 15 and 64
years who were enrolled in a university or other tertiary institution. We also
looked at the differences between younger and older students, with younger
students being aged 15 to 24 years, and older students being 25 to 64
years.
Jane:
Ok, so how many students are there?
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Guin:
In 2011, there were just under a million higher education students in
Australia, which is about 6% of people aged 15-64.
Jane:
Were they mostly young people or was there a spread of ages?
Guin:
There was a bit of a spread, but most students were younger – nearly 60%
were aged between 15 and 24.
Jane:
Ok, so was there any difference between the sexes – did more men study
than women?
Guin:
Not any more – since 1987 more women have been enrolled in higher
education than men. In 2011, about 57% of students were women.
Jane:
That’s pretty interesting. So what sort of things are they studying?
Guin:
In 2012, the most popular courses for all students were business and
management and teacher education, with 10% enrolled in each of these
courses. 5% of students were also enrolled in nursing, and another 5% in
each of accounting, and law.
Jane:
Did men and women do different courses?
Guin:
Yeah, the most popular courses for men were business and management,
and banking finance and related fields, while more women studied nursing,
teacher education and behavioural sciences.
Jane:
Were they studying for their first degree, these students?
Guin:
Well, that depended on age. Around 90% of younger students were
studying for their first degree (which you might expect), while older students
were more likely to be continuing their studies or branching into new fields –
57% of them already had a bachelor degree.
Jane:
What about international students – is our student population becoming
more multicultural?
Guin:
Yeah, it is Jane, though there hasn’t been a big change. Around 33% of
students were born overseas in 2011 – up from 30% in 2001. 60% of these
were born in Asia, and around 16% were born in Europe.
Jane:
Are there any particular countries that more students come from?
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Guin:
Yeah, looking into that in a bit more detail, we found about 19% of
overseas-born students came from China, about 7% from England, 6% from
India, 5% from Malaysia and 4% from New Zealand, amongst other
countries. A good thing for the country on many fronts, but economically
important as well - in 2010, fee income from international students was
around $3.7 billion.
Jane:
And how about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students – are their
numbers improving?
Guin:
Well, there’s a good news story there, Jane. Even though only one in 20
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged15-24 years were studying
in 2011 compared with 1 in 5 non-indigenous people the same age, the rate
has more than tripled in the last 25 years. Just in the last five years there
was a 63% increase - from around 2,900 Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander higher ed students in 2006 to just under 4,700 in 2011.
Jane:
Hmmm. Guin, it’s sometimes said that your background affects your
likelihood of going further in education – did you find anything to suggest
this was true?
Guin:
Yeah, we did. Younger students were more likely to be in higher education
when one of their parents had completed a Bachelor Degree or above, and
even more likely if both their parents had a degree.
Jane:
I suppose they are more likely to be financially well-off and more able to
help support their children while they study.
Guin:
That’s right.
Jane:
Ok, onto a different topic - where do students live?
Guin:
Well, students generally live in capital cities, but there were some interesting
stories about student mobility. It turns out that if you lived in a capital city in
2006, you were likely to be living in a capital city in 2011 while you studied,
but the same was true for people who were living outside a capital city.
Jane:
So there wasn’t a big move to the city to study?
Guin:
That’s right, only 9% of students had moved to a capital city in the past 5
years. But for those that had moved, the most common reason given by
students for their last move was to be closer to education facilities.
Jane:
And how about living arrangements – do they tend to live in student
accommodation, move out, or stay at home longer?
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Guin:
Well, that’s a story that’s changed a bit over the last ten years. Compared
with 2001, more students were living with their parents, while less were
living with a partner, although this was true of young adults in general, not
just students. We also talked about this trend in our podcast and article on
young adults.
Jane:
I remember, that was interesting… What about the students from overseas?
Guin:
Yeah, they were more likely to live in overcrowded conditions than students
born in Australia – around 20% compared with 6%. We went into this in a bit
more detail, and looking at people from countries with a thousand or more
students in Australia, we found that around half of students born in Nepal
and Afghanistan, and over a third of students born in Pakistan, Iraq and
Sudan, lived in an overcrowded dwelling. Overall, about 11% of higher
education students lived in overcrowded conditions, compared with 7% of
non-students the same age.
Jane:
What about earning an income? Were there many students working as well
as studying?
Guin:
Yes, quite a lot, although how much they worked depended on age. In 2012,
younger students were more likely to study full-time and work part-time, or
not work at all, while older students were more likely to study part-time and
work either full or part-time. Around 90% of younger students were studying
full-time in 2012, compared with 42% of older students.
Jane:
What sort of jobs did they do?
Guin
In 2011, common occupations for older students included registered nurses,
university lecturers and tutors, and sales assistants. The most common
occupations for younger students were sales assistants, waiters, checkout
operators, office cashiers. You’ll notice that all of these jobs have some
potential for working part-time.
Jane:
They do, don’t they. How about their income – do students have very much?
Guin:
In 2009-10, the median income from all sources of income for employed
students was $564 a week, with the median income for younger students
being much lower than that of older students ($331 compared with $1,103 a
week). This income could be more than just wages too – they could also be
getting some government support or other income.
Jane:
Why such a difference between the younger and older students?
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Guin:
Well, older students were more likely to be employed in professional
occupations and work full-time, while younger students were more likely to
be employed in retail and hospitality, and work part-time.
Jane:
How about people that didn’t work – were there many students mainly on
government allowances?
Guin:
Not so many, actually. In 2009-10, the main source of income for 61% of
students was a wage or salary. This was more the case for older students,
with 67% of them having a wage or salary compared with 56% of younger
students. But only around 15% of students had a government pension or
allowance as their main source of income. That was the case for both
younger and older students.
Jane:
Thanks for all that, Guin. Now, we think of students having a bit of a party
lifestyle, don’t we? Did you find that was true?
Guin:
Interestingly, not so much. After adjusting for age, we found that in 2011-12,
higher ed students were half as likely as non-students aged 18-64 to be
current smokers. They were also more likely to meet recommended
guidelines for exercise but they were just as likely as the non-students to be
overweight or obese, based on their BMI.
Jane:
What about drinking?
Guin:
They were less likely to do that too. In 2011-12, only 14% of students aged
18-64 drank more than two standard drinks a day on average, compared
with 21% of others the same age. Students were also less likely to binge
drink.
Jane:
Binge drink. How did they measure binge drinking?
Guin:
OK. Binge drinking was when they consumed more than four standard
drinks on a single occasion in the past year. So 45% of higher ed students
had been binge drinking, compared with 52% of non-students. So, working
hard and studying hard, our higher ed students.
Jane:
Ok, that is very interesting! Well, thank you very much for your time today
Guin - you've given us some great information.
Guin:
Thanks, it was great talking to you, Jane.
Jane:
Now for listeners who'd like to know more, the full article is available on the
Australian Social Trends home page at www.abs.gov.au/socialtrends.
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A reminder that the July issue also has some other great articles – Samesex couples, Spending patterns of Australian couples, and Car Nation,
about Australia’s driving habits; definitely worth having a look.
So that's it for this podcast. Thank you for listening and bye for now.
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