That’s interesting—I don’t see employment-population ratio used very often in cases like this.
I would argue, however, that factoring out an increase in university attendance isn’t necessarily good practice for determining the degree of economic immiseration. During recessions, the general sentiment is that more people will pursue a higher degree than they would otherwise prefer in order to avoid a bad labor market. The share of the population getting into debt or burning generational capital (and, often, losing the prime years for starting a family) out of fear of a bad economy isn’t orthogonal to how bad things feel and are, especially for young people.
That’s interesting—I don’t see employment-population ratio used very often in cases like this.
I would argue, however, that factoring out an increase in university attendance isn’t necessarily good practice for determining the degree of economic immiseration. During recessions, the general sentiment is that more people will pursue a higher degree than they would otherwise prefer in order to avoid a bad labor market. The share of the population getting into debt or burning generational capital (and, often, losing the prime years for starting a family) out of fear of a bad economy isn’t orthogonal to how bad things feel and are, especially for young people.