The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between reading literacy and age in an adult population aged 25 to 65 in Nordic countries using PIAAC 2012 data. More specifically, the study examined to what extent variations in the literacy proficiency of adults are explained by age and the recentness of qualifications when variables related to education, occupation, and skill use are controlled. The statistical method was regression analysis. The recentness of education explained only a part of the performance gap between the oldest adults and others. The significance of the length and scope of initial education in developing literacy proficiency overall, is difficult to compensate. There were insignificant differences between the Nordic countries. Literacy is seen as an essential key competence in every person's day-to-day life, including situations related to learning, work, and citizenship. The European reference framework for the key competences for lifelong learning (European Commission, 2007), as well as subsequent work defining twenty-first century skills (e.g., Binkley et al., 2012, p. 22), see reading literacy as one of the basic skills relevant to communication, information literacy, and digital competence.While literacy has always been defined and transformed by the changes and technologies in the surrounding society, during the last two decades, technology has undergone many changes within an extremely short period of time. Particularly, global economic competition, based on the effective use of information and communication and the Internet quickly becoming ubiquitous in people's professional and personal lives, is reflected in, and has been affected by, today's literacy practices (Leu, Kinzer, Coiro, Castek, & Henry, 2013, pp. 1151-1153 Learning how to master the new literacy strategies, practices, and dispositions is now more challenging than before, since new technologies create and demand new literacies that are multifaceted and constantly changing, while emphasizing new forms of strategic knowledge about information use and communication (Leu et al., 2013(Leu et al., , pp. 1158(Leu et al., -1162. This is a literacy challenge with which everyone, including adults of different ages, has to deal. Since both technologies and numerous texts encountered in life change continuously, reading skills also need to be defined broadly and developed continuously (Binkley et al., 2012, p. 22). Thus, literacy is not only a tool for, or a key to, lifelong learning, but is also an object of lifelong learning (e.g., Sulkunen, 2013)-now more than ever before.Solid foundational skills provide a basis for the lifelong development of literacy. International assessments have been established and implemented to determine how well adults of different ages and in various countries are equipped for the current literacy demands and for lifelong and life-wide development of literacy. The most recent and most relevant assessment for adults is the © 2017 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Lim...