A Classification of Factors Affecting Adults’ Skills Distribution (original) (raw)
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Modelling adult skills in OECD countries
British Educational Research Journal, 2017
Research in the social sciences has focused extensively on the relationship between family background , educational attainment and social destination, on the one hand, and on the processes of skills creation and skills use, on the other. This paper brings these two branches of the literature together by examining the correlation between a range of social factors. The methodology we adopt provides a comprehensive approach to the study of the channels through which literacy skills are acquired, taking into account the interrelation of family background, educational attainment, and the use of skills at work and at home. We use the Programme of International Assessment of Adult Competences (PIAAC) dataset and apply a structural equation model (SEM). Our results show that family background and education play an important role in the configuration of adult skills and skill practices. Unequal family access to resources has a strong impact at later stages in life and strongly affects educational attainment and skills outcomes. Additionally, skills use has a positive and direct impact on adult skills.
Background: Educational qualifications and literacy skills are highly related. This is not surprising as it is one aim of educational systems to equip individuals with competencies necessary to take part in society. Because of this relationship educational qualifications are often used as a proxy for "human capital". However, from a theoretical perspective, there are many reasons why this relationship is not perfect, and to some degree this is due to third variables. Thus, we want to explore the net relationship between educational attainment (harmonized according to the International Standard Classification of Education, ISCED) and literacy skills, and how much skills vary within education levels across countries.
Secondary Education Systems and the General Skills of Less- and Intermediate-educated Adults
Sociology of Education, 2015
We investigate the impact of external differentiation and vocational orientation of (lower and upper) secondary education on country variation in the mean numeracy skills of, and skills gaps between, adults with low and intermediate formal qualifications. We use data on 30- to 44-year-olds in 18 countries from the 2011–12 round of the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies. We find that higher levels of external differentiation (tracking) amplify skills gaps between less- and intermediate-educated adults. This is mainly due to lower mean skills achievement of less-educated adults. By contrast, greater emphasis on vocational skills in upper-secondary education is positively related to numeracy skills for both less- and intermediate-educated adults. Gains are larger for the less educated, so the gap in numeracy skills tends to fall with the degree of vocational orientation. We discuss implications of our findings for research on educational and labor market ine...
Cross-Country Variation in Adult Skills Inequality
Comparative Education Review, 2015
This article examines crosscountry variations in adult skills inequality and asks why skills in Anglophone countries are so unequal. Drawing on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's recent Survey of Adult Skills and other surveys, it investigates the differences across countries and country groups in inequality in both skills opportunities and outcomes and uses pseudo-cohort analysis to establish trends over time and during the life course. The analysis shows that adults' skills in Anglophone countries, and particularly in the United States and England, tend to be more unequal than in other countries on a wide range of measures. This cannot be explained by intercohort differences, skills distributions among adult migrants, or levels and distributions of adult learning, but inequality in education levels provides a strong predictor of skills inequality among adults. Whereas research suggests that early selection drives skills inequality in compulsory schooling, certain forms of tracking, such as bifurcation into academic or apprenticeship/vocational education in upper secondary education, can have a mitigating effect.
How adult skills are configured
2019
This article examines the relationship between family background, education, skills use and direct measures of literacy skills in five countries: the United States, Japan, Germany, Denmark and Spain. The main aim is to contribute to the research on skills acquisition by providing a comprehensive analysis of literacy skills. We employ a structural equation modelling and use PIAAC data. Results show that skills are configured in a highly complex manner and that significant differences emerge across the five countries, reflecting their historical and institutional characteristics. Intergenerational transmission of educational inequality is a crucial factor in shaping skills outcomes, although this factor varies considerably between countries. The effects of family background, educational attainment, and skills use in daily life on literacy respond to country specific equilibria.
Skills Inequalities in 21 Countries. PIAAC results for prime-age adults
Only few previous studies have explored cross-national variation in the relationship between educational certificates and competences. In this paper, we investigate the cer- tificate-competence relationship, operationalized as skills gaps by level of educational attainment. More importantly, we scrutinize how two aspects of educational stratifica- tion processes, vertical stratification and occupation-specificity, affects skills gaps. Us- ing data on 25-54 year olds from the 2011/12 round of the Programme for the Interna- tional Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), we find that more occupation-specific education systems produce smaller differences in basic general skills between adults with low and intermediate levels of education. Higher levels of vertical stratification, by contrast, result in larger low-intermediate skills gaps. None of the two stratification aspects can however explain variations in the skills gaps between intermediate and high educated adults. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for labor market research.
Towards A Framework For The Comparative Analysis Of National Systems Of Skill Formation
Social Science Research Network, 2001
This article builds on earlier attempts to develop a conceptual framework for the comparative analysis of training and skill formation systems. Following a critical review of previous approaches, the article identifies the main underlying relationships which shape national systems of skill formation. We identify four such 'models' of the skill formation process. These models show how such a framework can help us understand why societies have different approaches to the provision of education, training and skill formation and why there are significant differences in government policies towards training as they at tempt to respond to the challenges of globalisation. There have been a number of attempts to develop typologies of education, training and skill formation systems. Many of these have emanated from particular disciplines of social science, namely educational, industrial relations/labour market studies, economics and political science. More recent work, however, has recognised the importance of an interdisciplinary approach which combines theoretical understanding and moves towards a much broader perspective. We begin this discussion by considering some of the more recent attempts to theorise skill formation systems and formulate typologies which can be used for comparative purposes. We start with a very brief look at typologies developed from the educational perspective. Here much research has focussed on the identification of different models of educational provision. One influential researcher has been Furth (1985) who, in a study carried out on behalf of the OECD, distinguished the education and vocational training of different countries according to the post-compulsory
Skills, parental background, and changes in educational institutions
2020
In this study, we test how educational expansion, prolonging education, and educational reforms have contributed to the improvement of skills in developed societies in recent decades. We expect that the growing openness of the educational system is associated with higher gains in cognitive skills, but that there are several multiplicative and compensatory processes related to both family background and the educational institutions involved that can alter these trends, depending on family background. We test the assumptions with the first wave (2013) of the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) data, linked with birth-cohort-specific, macro-level information on the changes in educational institutions in each country. The results suggest that the growing proportion of those with a tertiary education as well as the prolonging of education are associated with the improvement of skills, partially because these changes are also associated with the increased effectiveness of education in the improvement of skills. However, the growing number of reforms in general tend to harm the skill development especially of those with poorly educated parents, even if the reforms were intended to remove educational dead-ends.
Education, earnings and skills: A multi-country comparison
2004
Abstract: This paper uses the measures of basic skills (or functional literacy) in the International Adult Literacy Survey to examine the impact of education and basic skills on earnings across a large number of countries. We show that the estimated return to formal education is sensitive to the inclusion of these measures: excluding them biases the return to education upwards in many countries to a significant degree, usually 1 or 2 percentage points.