Human Resource Investment and Early-Stage Career Choice: Evaluating Work–Life Income Paths in 21st-Century Canada

Abstract

Of necessity, people make many investment decisions regarding their human resource stock early in their life cycle, long before outcomes predicated upon those choices are realized. Different choices involve very different initial effort and financing outlays and issues arise as to how these alternative paths can be compared and evaluated. Here, techniques for the cardinal comparison of human resource contingent work–life-cycle income value profiles under alternative income valuation function assumptions are outlined and instruments for examining potential ambiguities in comparison developed. All are applied in an analysis of the impact of different levels of investment of human resources in 21st-century Canada. The results, with one notable exception (the choice for boys between a trade or a bachelor-level degree), indicate unambiguous life-cycle benefits to higher levels of human resource stock investment for both girls and boys. Within gender, best–worst relative magnitudes are increasing over time for both genders but more so for girls. Boys are enjoying a universal but diminishing premium over time, reflective of male–female income convergence.