Degrees of competency: the relationship between educational qualifications and adult skills across countries

Abstract

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. Methods: We use data from 21 countries from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies 2012. This paper compares the literacy skills of adults who achieved different levels of educational attainment across countries. Given the high degree of educational differentiation in most countries, we do this using a more differentiated educational attainment variable than what is commonly used. In our analyses we firstly adjust for factors that are likely to affect access to education and the acquisition of educational qualifications and literacy skills, such as parental education and language and migration background. In a second step, we also take into account factors affecting skill development after initial formal education, such as occupation and skill use at home. Results: We firstly find a high degree of heterogeneity of skills across countries for equivalent education categories. Secondly, we find skill similarities for equivalent education categories classified at different broad education levels, sometimes even breaking the hierarchical order of 'higher education entails higher competencies'. Conclusion: We conclude that ISCED levels cannot be taken as a cross-nationally comparable proxy for human capital in terms of literacy skills, and that education has to be harmonized in a substantively more meaningful way in future adult literacy surveys.

PIAAC Numeracy Skills and Home Use Among Adult English Learners

“…Initial PIAAC research indicates that immigrant adults tend to struggle with both literacy and numeracy compared with native-born adults (Batalova & Fix, 2015Krupar et al, 2017;Massing & Schneider, 2017;OECD, 2018). One in six U.S. adults are first-generation immigrants, compared with approximately 1 in 4 in Canada and 1 in 3 in Australia (Perry, 2017).…”

“…Reder (2009bReder ( , 2013 distinguishes two sources of learners: adult immigrants and, less frequently, older adults and notes "increasing need for programs that focus on skill retention among older adults" (Reder, 2013, p. 21). Life-wide learning indicates gaining numeracy skills that can be applied at home or in educational or community settings (Massing & Schneider, 2017;Reder, 2013). Examples of numeracy tasks at home include daily activities like balancing a checkbook, calculating interest, or measuring for recipes (Smith, 2009).…”

How long is the shadow? The relationships of family background to selected adult outcomes: results from PIAAC

“…The sizes of the gaps varied considerably across countries. 4 The article by Massing and Schneider (2017) examines a different facet of the relationship between Cognitive Skills and Educational Attainment. One important finding was that literacy levels varied substantially within ISCED categories across countries, even when controlling for other factors related to literacy levels.…”

Knowledge and skill development of Bihar farmers on inland fisheries management: A terminal evaluation

“…Background, educational qualifications and literacy skills are highly related. But sometimes, from a theoretical perspective, due to presence of third variables, this relationship may vary (Massing and Schneider, 2017).…”