Over the last decade, the number of students in higher education in Mexico has doubled, and more than half a million graduates enter the labour market every year. Finding adequate employment is difficult and too many young graduates work in occupations for which they are overqualified, or end up in jobs without social security or pension coverage.

The reader’s guide provides information on the OECD’s in-depth analysis of the labour market relevance and outcomes of higher education. It presents the methodology used in the Mexico review and concludes with a brief overview of the chapters in this report.

Mexico’s economy is regionally diverse and increasingly open. The country’s strategic sectors – automobile, aerospace, energy and electronics – are expected to continue their growth paths and reforms are underway to increase productivity and innovation in more traditional industries as well. Higher education is expanding, and if current patterns are maintained, 26% of youth will gain a degree at some point in their lifetime. Half a million graduates enter the labour market every year and Mexico relies on these graduates to move upward in the global value chains.

This chapter outlines recommendations for enhancing the labour market relevance and outcomes of the higher education system in Mexico. Each recommendation is accompanied by a policy rationale and a summary of key issues in Mexico. The recommendations, developed for the Mexican Secretariat of Public Education (Secretaria de Educación Pública, SEP), are structured under three headings: aligning higher education with the changing needs of the labour market, helping students succeed in higher education and the labour market, and co-ordinating the higher education system to enhance labour market relevance and outcomes.

This chapter presents some characteristics of the political, geographic and demographic context of Mexico. It examines the key features of the economy, with a focus on the country’s strategic industries, and the labour market. The chapter briefly discusses the most important economic and labour market challenges at national and state levels, also in light of future developments. The chapter concludes with implications for knowledge and skills needs and more specifically for the labour market relevance of higher education.

This chapter contextualises Mexican higher education within the country’s broader education system and provides an overview of the structure of higher education, a profile of higher education students, the pathways and processes to enter higher education, and the investment made by governments in higher education. This chapter also explores how the Mexican government and its subordinate agencies use regulation, funding, information and organisation within the higher education system. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the implications that the structure and governance of education have for labour market relevance.

This chapter presents the skills and labour market outcomes of Mexico’s higher education graduates based on OECD data, the Mexican Labour Force Survey, other national data sources and stakeholder views reported to the OECD review team. There has been major progress in increasing higher education attainment among Mexican youth, and currently over half a million higher education graduates enter the labour market every year. Their labour market outcomes are better than those with only upper secondary education, but their working conditions are not favourable; for example, large and increasing shares of higher education graduates have informal jobs and are overqualified for their jobs. Large differences exist by gender, age, field of study, level of study and geographic location.

This chapter examines the prevalence and effectiveness of key practices in higher education institutions and by employers in Mexico to support the labour market relevance and graduate outcomes of higher education. It also identifies the enabling factors that help facilitate the use and effectiveness of these practices and any barriers that prevent or hinder them. The chapter draws on literature and secondary sources, as well as data gathered through OECD workshops, interviews, phone calls and an online survey with higher education policy makers and representatives of Mexico’s higher education institutions and employers.

This chapter examines the approaches that Mexican policy makers can take to steer the higher education system towards greater labour market relevance. It focuses on how well different policy levers are working and discusses where new policy responses are required. Evidence from formal evaluations and recent OECD reviews on related topics are used for the analysis, as well as evidence gathered as part of the OECD review team’s interviews and workshops with key stakeholders. The chapter also provides international examples that Mexico may wish to consider when designing new ways to better support the labour market relevance of higher education.