Non-parametric survival modeling of time to employment amongst 09/10 cohort of mathematics graduates

Abstract

The length of waiting time to employment may be considered as the determinant of the employability of a graduate. Hence, this project aims to study the behaviour of waiting time to employment of mathematics graduates. In particular, this study analyzes the differentials of the factors levels as well as identifies the factors that may influence the waiting time to employment by applying the survival analysis techniques. This study involves 40 mathematics graduates from Department of Mathematical Sciences who graduated in October 2012 at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. In this project, Kaplan-Meier estimator is used to estimate the waiting time to employment of the graduates while the logrank test is used to compare the difference between two or more groups of factors influencing the employability. Moreover, the other method which is Cox proportional hazard regression model is used to examine the relationship between the variables (covariates) with the hazard. There is evidence that residential, English communication skill and confidence level were the factors that influence the employability of the mathematics graduates.