Who enjoys the opportunity to be better educated than their parents?

by Dirk Van Damme
Head of the Innovation and Measuring Progress division, Directorate for Education and Skills

Relationship between the share of upward mobility among 25-34 year olds and the likelihood of participating in tertiary education for 20-34 year olds (values in reverse order) 2012.

Over the past decades, education systems have expanded enormously. They provide opportunities for many more students than before to access and succeed in secondary and tertiary education. The rapidly increasing supply of skilled labour in the economy over the past five decades was a crucial ingredient for growth and prosperity, for the modernisation of societies, and for the success of democracy. As more young people became more highly educated than their parents, upward mobility in education became the standard of families’ aspirations and individual ambitions. Families invested a lot of resources and energy into the educational careers of their children in order to unlock a brighter future to which education seemed to be the key.

The most recent Education Indicators in Focus presents some interesting evidence on inter-generational educational mobility, based on data from the Survey of Adult Skills, a product of the OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competences (PIAAC). On average across the 24 national or sub-national systems that participated in the survey, 39% of adults have attained a higher level of education than their parents, whereas 12% have attained a lower level. Across generations there is a slight downward trend in educational mobility: 32% of 25-34 year-old adults had a higher level of education than their parents, compared with 43% of 45-54 year-olds.

The vertical axis on the chart above shows that between-country differences in educational mobility among young adults are huge. For example, upward educational mobility in the United States and Japan has slowed, partly because these countries already had high levels of educational attainment. Upward educational mobility is racing ahead in Korea, but also in Ireland, Italy and Spain, where educational attainment, in general, was much lower.

Many policy makers and observers are concerned about slowing social mobility. If social mobility decelerates, the argument goes, the engine moving countries towards greater prosperity and less inequality would start to sputter. Social mobility, of which educational mobility is an important component, is perceived to be an intrinsic feature of cohesive and democratic societies. Therefore, social mobility is thought to be closely linked to equality of opportunity.

But can we detect a connection between upward mobility and equality of opportunity in the data? The horizontal axis of the chart above gives the relative likelihood that 20-34 year-old students will participate in tertiary education among young adults whose parents have a tertiary qualification, compared with young adults whose parents have a below-tertiary qualification. The lower the odds ratio, the more a country is approaching equality of opportunity, regardless of the educational attainment of an individual’s parents. For example, in France, students whose parents are tertiary educated are about 6 times more likely to participate in tertiary education than students whose parents have not attained a secondary education. In the United States, the odds ratio climbs to 6.8, and in Italy to 9.5. In contrast, in Canada, Korea, the Netherlands and the Nordic countries, the odds ratio is below 3, thus indicating a fairly equitable access to tertiary education.

But, coming back to our question, the chart also shows no real correlation between upward educational mobility and equality of opportunity to participate in tertiary education. Countries in the lower left quadrant of the chart share greater inequality of opportunity and low educational mobility, while those in the upper right quadrant share greater equality of opportunity and high educational mobility. So they seem to confirm the hypothesis that systems that are more socially selective, in access to tertiary education, go together with less upward educational mobility, and the other way around.

But what of the countries in the upper left and lower right quadrants that seem to contradict the hypothesis? The Nordic countries and Canada combine greater equality of opportunity with moderate upward mobility. These countries already enjoy high levels of educational attainment, so the relative chance that a young person is better educated than his or her parents is lower than in countries where the expansion in higher education occurred more recently. Indeed, data on educational attainment in Education at a Glance show that these countries already have relatively high levels of education among older adults and less upward educational mobility.

France, Italy and Poland and, to a lesser degree, the Flemish Community of Belgium and England, have the opposite profile. In these countries, participation in tertiary education is highly selective, yet there is still relatively fluid upward educational mobility. These countries share a more recent history of educational expansion with below-average educational attainment among older adults. They also probably recruit their tertiary students more from the middle classes than from among the most disadvantaged segment of the population. This is observed in Italy and, to a lesser extent, France.

Decelerating educational mobility doesn't seem to be a real problem unless it is triggered by particularly selective access to higher education. In this sense, the United States seems to combine the worst of both indicators. But systems that exclude disadvantaged families from education opportunities might realise upward social mobility at the expense of social inclusion.

Links: 
Education Indicators in Focus, issue No. 28, by Etienne Albiser and Gara Rojas González
Education Indicators in Focus, issue No. 28, French version
OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competences (PIAAC)
OECD Skills Outlook 2013
On this topic, visit:
Education Indicators in Focus: www.oecd.org/education/indicators 
On the OECD’s education indicators, visit:
Education at a Glance 2014: OECD Indicators: www.oecd.org/edu/eag.htm
Chart source: © OECD (2014), Education at a Glance 2014: OECD Indicators, Indicator A4 (www.oecd.org/edu/eag.htm).

How many young people leave school without any qualification?

by Dirk Van Damme

Head of the Innovation and Measuring Progress division, Directorate for Education and Skills

More education yields better job prospects and higher average levels of income, and is also associated with better (self-reported) health, social capital and political engagement. Year after year Education at a Glance provides the evidence that links educational attainment to these various economic and social outcomes. The economic crisis has underlined the relevance of such findings. The social cost of the crisis, in terms of unemployment and poverty, has been particularly high for those who lacked the risk insurance that education seems to guarantee for the highly educated.

The latest unemployment data from the OECD (November 2014) show that unemployment rates remain virtually unchanged at very high levels and that there is little prospect for real improvement. The recently published Education at a Glance Interim Report , which includes 2013 data, shows that the relative risk of unemployment among low-educated adults continues to be very high. On average across OECD countries, 13.7% of those without an upper secondary qualification were unemployed, compared to 5.3% for tertiary-educated individuals and 8% among those with upper secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary education.

Countries have every good reason to lift as many young people as possible out of the trap of having to enter the labour market and adulthood without a good qualification. Indeed, many countries have identified the problem of early, unqualified school leavers as a major educational challenge. One just has to glance at the chart above to understand how big the problem is. On average across OECD countries with available data, 16.8% of 25-34 year-olds have to start life without a minimum level qualification. At least one in six young people in 13 OECD countries – including Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Norway – lacks qualifications. This is a major risk for these labour markets and societies.

Many countries have expanded their tertiary education systems and have seen the share of tertiary-educated individuals in the 25-34 year-old cohort grow year after year – but the share of low-educated youth does not diminish at an equivalent rate. Between 2005 and 2013, the average annual growth rate in the share of tertiary-educated youth was almost twice as high as the rate of decline in the share of young people who did not have an upper secondary qualification: .94 percentage points compared to .50 percentage points. This also means that the relative share of mid-educated 25-34 year-olds has decreased as well, by .46 percentage points per year, on average.

Some countries have both a large share of highly educated youth and a large share of low-educated youth. In Spain, for example, 41.1% of 25-34 year-olds are tertiary educated and 34.9% of individuals that age do not have an upper secondary qualification. Austria, the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia have the opposite profile, with small proportions of low-educated youth, a large share of young people with an upper secondary qualification, and a comparatively small proportion of tertiary-educated youth.

Sure, there is progress: the group of young people without any qualification grows smaller year after year; but progress is slow and unevenly distributed among countries. In Greece, Luxembourg, Portugal, Turkey and the United Kingdom, the share of young people without any qualification decreased by an average of more than 1.2 percentage points between 2005 and 2013. But in Denmark, Estonia, Norway and Switzerland, the share of young people in the workforce who had no qualification increased during the same period.

The message is clear: if countries want to achieve sustainable and inclusive economic growth and social progress, they should not only expand their tertiary education systems, they should also work to reduce the share of low-educated youth. Leaving a large share of young adults behind without any educational protection against the risks of unemployment, insecure jobs and social exclusion might, in the end, eat into most of the growth dividend acquired through higher educational attainment. Progress has to be achieved across the educational spectrum.

Links: 
OECD Press release: Success of education reforms threatened by lack of oversight, says OECD
Education at a Glance
Education at a Glance Interim Report: Update of Employment and Educational Attainment Indicators
Explore Education at a Glance data on GPS
Chart Source: OECD (2015), Education at a Glance Interim Report: Update of Employment and Educational Attainment Indicators, Table 1.4, available for consultation on line only

Addressing inequities in the Slovak Republic through evaluation and assessment

by Claire Shewbridge
Analyst, Directorate for Education and Skills

It is taken for granted in OECD countries nowadays that the vast majority of children and young people have access to education, regardless of their wealth or background. However, despite this great achievement, in many countries, the socio-economic background of children will still have a large impact on how well they succeed at school.

In the Slovak Republic, there are considerable equity challenges, and a very clear link between students’ socio-economic background and their educational achievement. The educational differences between rural areas and cities are significant, regional disparities are more pronounced than in other OECD countries, and the educational outcomes of the Roma minority are particularly poor. This has a lasting impact on a child’s life, as the reduced risk of unemployment for Slovak men and women with upper secondary education is particularly strong when compared internationally. These regional challenges and the important role that education plays in promoting a more inclusive growth are also underlined in the OECD Economic Survey launched today by OECD's Secretary-General in Bratislava.

An essential tool to help the Slovak Republic address this inequity is an effective evaluation and assessment system that will help them to monitor teaching and learning, set educational goals, and improve practice and outcomes. This has been the focus of the OECD’s Review of Evaluation and Assessment in Education, of which the Slovak Republic Review is the final publication.

To improve the evaluation and assessment system in the Slovak Republic, a strategic approach is needed, with the clarification of long-term goals for schooling, and capacity building at the national level so that results from evaluation and assessment feed into policies for school system improvement.

The Slovak Republic has made a positive move by strengthening the objectivity of examinations at the end of upper secondary schooling (Maturita) and developing national assessments in Year 9 that help embed the competency-based national curriculum. Next week, also, children in selected primary schools will sit a new assessment in Year 5.

To keep moving forward, the entire school community needs to be empowered to get involved, from parents associations, to students associations, to teachers associations. An important part of this is ensuring that teachers and school leaders have access to adequate professional development. With strategic national leadership, and meaningful community feedback, positive changes can be driven forward so that all students, regardless of their background, will have the opportunity to succeed.

Links:
OECD Reviews of Evaluation and Assessment in Education: Slovak Republic
OECD Press Release: Economic activity is accelerating in the Slovak Republic, OECD says 
OECD Review on Evaluation and Assessment Frameworks for Improving School Outcomes
Synergies for Better Learning: An International Perspective on Evaluation and Assessment
Photo credit: © iQoncept - Fotolia.com 

The Great Gatsby Curve: Does it really exist and is education the key?

by John Jerrim
Thomas J. Alexander Fellow, Directorate for Education and Skills

Income inequality is high and rising in a number of developed and developing countries. There are many potential economic, social and political consequences of this. But perhaps none are more worrisome than the possibility that rising income inequality will limit educational and economic opportunity in the next generation.

This supposed relationship between income inequality and intergenerational mobility has become widely known as the ‘Great Gatsby Curve.’ It is commonly shown using this graph with “Economic mobility” (differences in the chances of “making it” in life between individuals from rich and poor backgrounds) tending to be lower in countries that are more economically unequal.

This finding has caught the imagination of important public policymakers worldwide. It has been widely cited by high ranking public policymakers, best-selling authors  and Nobel Prize winning academics. But does this Great Gatsby relationship really exist? I have previously shown how the Great Gatsby Curve is highly sensitive to a number of data issues, and that more robust evidence using more cross-nationally comparable data is needed. Furthermore, if this relationship does exist, what are the mechanisms driving it? Academics have long argued that socio-economic inequality in educational attainment is likely to play a key role in economic mobility. But could this also explain why there is a link between income inequality and intergenerational mobility, and thus the presence of the Great Gatsby Curve?

I am attempting to answer these important policy questions during my OECD Thomas J. Alexander Fellowship. Using the Programme for International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) dataset, I am investigating how the link between family background, educational attainment and pay in later life varies across more than 20 OECD countries. These results are then compared to external information on income inequality drawn from the Luxemburg Income Study  to establish whether there is indeed a link between economic inequality, educational attainment and social mobility.

I am currently two months into my fellowship at the OECD offices/headquarters in Paris, and have noted several positive influences that the programme has had upon my career. I have benefitted hugely from developing contacts within the OECD, including the other Thomas J. Alexander fellows. These networks have undoubtedly enhanced this piece of research and are going to be pivotal in my future career as a cross-national comparative researcher. The strong links the OECD has with policymakers worldwide has been another significant advantage of the fellowship, providing the ideal platform to showcase my research internationally. The OECD has also provided the time and expert guidance I have needed to develop this project using their databases. This has stimulated a range of further research ideas, which I am intended to pursue in my application for future research grants. 

Links:
Programme for International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC)
OECD Thomas J. Alexander Fellowship
Photo credit: Retro style party / @Shutterstock

What are the social benefits of education?

Elisabeth Villoutreix
Communications Officer, Directorate for Education

The link between education and social benefits has long been recognised, as far back as Ancient Greece when Aristotle and Plato pointed out that education is central to the well-being of society. More recently, in the past few decades, research has supported this conventional wisdom, revealing that education not only enables individuals to perform better in the labour market, but also helps to improve their overall health, promote active citizenship and contain violence.

So how can education predict social outcomes such as life expectancy, civic engagement and general life satisfaction?

The latest issue of Education Indicators in Focus seeks to answer this question by comparing the social benefits of education in selected OECD countries.

Data show that life expectancy is strongly associated with education. On average, among 15 OECD countries with available data, a 30-year-old tertiary-educated man can expect to live eight years longer than a 30-year-old man who has not completed upper secondary education.

Data also show that adults who have attained higher levels of education are generally more likely than those with lower levels of educational attainment to report stronger civic engagement, in terms of voting, volunteering, political interest, and interpersonal trust.

Apart from raising  income levels, education has the potential to help individuals develop skills, improve  social status and gain access to networks that could lead to enhanced social outcomes.  By fully recognising the power of education, policy makers could better address diverse societal challenges.

For more information
On this topic, visit:
Education Indicators in Focus: www.oecd.org/education/indicators 
On the OECD’s education indicators, visit:
Education at a Glance 2012: OECD Indicators: www.oecd.org/edu/eag2012 
On the OECD’s Indicators of Education Systems (INES) programme, visit:
INES Programme overview brochure
Chart Note: e figures describe the differences in the expected years of life remaining at age 30 across education levels.
1. Year of reference 2009.
2. Year of reference 2005.
3. Year of reference 2006.
4. Year of reference 2008.
5. Year of reference 2007-10.
6. e OECD average is the average for those countries shown in the chart.
Countries are ranked in descending order of the difference in life expectancy among men at age 30.
Chart source: Education at a Glance 2012: OECD Indicators, Indicator A11 (www.oecd.org/edu/eag2012)