Incomes in Sweden increase with the level of academic degree, according to new statistics on work after different education programs. Three years after graduation, the highest incomes are among those who studied higher education programs that were five years or longer. Across all groups, women in Sweden had lower incomes than men.
The forms of education that are examined are upper secondary school, higher vocational education and higher education. Here Statistics Sweden presents statistics for graduates in 2015/16 and their incomes in 2019. The Statistical Database contains statistics on graduates from 1996/97 to 2017/18 and their employment and income one, three, five and ten years after graduation.
Three years after graduation from upper secondary school, higher vocational education or higher education in 2015/16, the figures show the following: for women who did not pursue studies after upper secondary school, it is largely insignificant for their income whether they have a diploma from a vocational program or a higher education preparatory program. Men with a diploma from a vocational program, on the other hand, have a considerably higher income than those with a diploma from a higher education preparatory program. This is because a number of vocational programs in upper secondary school with predominantly men lead to relatively high incomes.
For both women and men, the income increases with the length of their higher education. However, differences between women and men are present in all groups, although they diminish somewhat as the length of the education increases.
Men with a diploma from an upper secondary vocational program and women with a degree from higher vocational education (in which programs are two years long on average) or with a degree from a 3-3.5 year long higher education programs have equally high incomes.
For both women and men, incomes are roughly the same after higher vocational education programs and after 3-3.5 years of higher education programs.
Many young people in Sweden do not study further directly after upper secondary school. Three years after graduation in 2015/16, 64 percent of the women and 81 percent of the men with a diploma from a vocational program are in work. Among women 27 percent are studying, and among men this figure is 12 percent. It was common to combine work and studies. Among graduates from higher education preparatory programs, further studies were considerably more common and many people in this group also combined work with studies. However, about one third only worked.
