Mathematics & Science Education and Income: An Empirical Study in Japan

Abstract: Since the second half of the 1990s, the decline in academic standards in mathematics and science among undergraduate students in Japan has been noted. Despite this, problems in science education have become increasingly severe, and their impact is having a mounting effect on Japan's economy. This paper studies the return to a university education in Japan by taking into account the relative ranking of the universities. We present an empirical analysis of how annual income differs depending on whether a major is natural science or humanities. We have found that science graduates have a higher average income than humanities graduates indicates that the added value they are producing is higher than that of humanities graduates. Of particular interest is the fact that a comparison of humanities graduates of A rank universities who did not sit admission examinations in mathematics with science graduates of B rank university showed that it was the science graduates who recorded higher average income at every age grade. The above comparison also reveals that even those humanities graduates of A rank universities who did sit admission examinations in mathematics are out-earned by science graduates of B rank universities in the under 30 and 55 and over age groups

Science Subjects Studied and Relation to Income after University Graduation : An Empirical Analysis in Japan*

This paper examines the effect of science education during the high school education how science graduates of universities are evaluated in the labor market. We conducted two online research projects and studied the subjects they were good, the size of companies where initially employed, employment status, and current income. The results show that among science graduates, workers adept at physics tend to have higher incomes compared to workers good at other subjects. Generational analysis based on the curriculum guideline amendments shows that the generational gap is small among science majors who are good at physics

Labor Market Evaluations of Learning in Science and Mathematics Subjects <Article>

This paper uses data obtained from 13,059 respondents to an online survey examining disparitiess between initial employment performance (size & scale of company of initial recruitment, manner of employment) and current employment performance (current position, current salary) according to bias in science learning among science graduates and mathematics learning among humanities graduates. The impact of amendments made to the Japanese national curriculum guidelines is also considered.　　 Survey results showed that, among science graduates, those who specialized in physics were recruited as full-time permanent employees of larger companies at a higher rate than graduates from other science disciplines. The proportion of physics graduates currently holding managerial positions was also high, as was their average annual income. For humanities graduates, those who had sat for admission examination(s) in mathematics had been recruited as full-time permanent employees of larger companies at a higher rate than graduates who had taken no admission examination(s) in mathematics. A higher proportion of graduates who had sat for admission examination(s) in mathematics held managerial positions than those who had not, and those who had taken mathematics examination(s) also had higher incomes. These findings agree with the results of previous surveys.　　 An analysis by generation, carried out in order to gauge the impact of amendments to national curriculum guidelines, showed that science graduates who had specialized in physics and humanities graduates who had taken admission examination(s) in mathematics showed the smallest inter-generational disparity in income, suggesting that the impact on such graduates of changing the national curriculum guidelines to reduce coursework has been only minimal