10.7910/DVN/181YBY Dignam, Michael Michael Dignam University of Ottawa Harvard Dataverse 2026 Social Sciences Postsecondary student demographics Postsecondary student employment Dignam, Michael Michael Dignam University of Ottawa 2026-03-06 2026-03-08 823494 17563 application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet text/plain 1.0 Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. This dataset uses Public Use Microdata Files (PUMFs) from the Labour Force Survey (LFS), freely available from the Statistics Canada website, to estimate point and variance estimates of demographics and employment statistics for Canadian postsecondary students between 2006 and 2025. Approximate variance estimates were computed using a Poisson bootstrap method with 1,000 resamples, following Beaumont and Patak (2012) and Statistics Canada (2025).<br /><br /> Starting in 2017, the LFS stopped asking students to specify their type of educational institution (high school, college, or university) and only asked about student status generally. To identify postsecondary students, high school graduation was used as a proxy among respondents reporting student status. Respondents aged 65 and over are exempt from answering student-related questions; therefore, students without a high school diploma or aged 65+ were excluded. Additionally, prior to 2011, the LFS recorded sex rather than gender; for consistency, this variable is referred to as sex throughout the dataset.<br /><br /> The LFS is a monthly survey conducted by Statistics Canada that collects domestic labour market information. It samples approximately 56,000 households using online, in-person, and telephone methods. The LFS employs a rotating panel design of six sub-samples, each remaining in the survey for six months before replacement. The survey covers 98% of Canadians aged 15 and older, excluding individuals on reserves, full-time Canadian Armed Forces members, institutionalized populations, and some households in remote areas. LFS sampling uses strata and clusters, with sample weights reflecting selection probability and adjustments for non-response, coverage errors, and population changes. For this study, population counts were drawn from the 2021 Census.<br /><br /> Beaumont, J.-F., & Patak, Z. (2012). On the generalized bootstrap for sample surveys with special attention to Poisson sampling. International Statistical Review, 80(1), 127-148.<br /><br /> Statistics Canada. (2025). Microdata user guide: Labour Force Survey (LFS) Public use microdata file (PUMF) January 2025. Retrieved from Statistics Canada website https://doi.org/10.25318/71m0001x-eng