OECD Skills Outlook 2013: First Results from the Survey of Adult Skills

This first OECD Skills Outlook presents the initial results of the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC), which evaluates the skills of adults in 22 OECD member countries and two partner countries. The survey was designed to provide insights into the availability of some key skills and how they are used at work and at home through the direct assessment of key information processing skills: literacy, numeracy and problem-solving in technology-rich environments.

The book examines the social and economic context, the supply of key information processing skills, who has these skills at what level, the supply of and demand for these skills in the labour market, the acquisition and maintenance of skills over a lifetime, and how proficiency in these skills translates into better economic and social outcomes.

Contents:

Reader’s guide

Executive summary
Overview

Chapter 1. The Skills Needed For The 21st Century
Major trends influencing the development and use of skills
- Access to computers and ICTs is widespread and growing
- ICTs are changing how services are provided and consumed
- Employment in services and high-skilled occupations is growing
- Imbalances between the supply of, and demand for, skills in labour markets are widespread
- What the Survey of Adult Skills can tell us
- The level of skills proficiency among adults
- Which groups in the population have low, medium and high levels of key information-processing skills
- The supply of, and demand for, key information-processing and generic skills in labour markets
- How key information-processing skills are developed and maintained over a lifetime
- How key information-processing skills translate into better economic and social outcomes

Chapter 2. Proficiency In Key Information-processing Skills among Wor king-Age Adults
- Defining literacy, numeracy and problem solving in technology-rich environments
- Reporting the results
- Proficiency in literacy
- What adults can do at different levels of literacy proficiency
- How distributions of proficiency scores compare across countries
- Proficiency in problem solving in technology-rich environments
- What adults can do at different levels of proficiency in problem solving in technology-rich environments
- What young adults can do at different levels of proficiency in problem solving in technology-rich environments
- The relationship between proficiency in literacy/numeracy and problem solving in technology-rich environments
- Comparison of the results from the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC ) with those of previous skills surveys
- Summarising performance across countries
- Summary

Chapter 3. The socio-demographic distribution of key information-processing skills
- An overview of socio-demographic differences in proficiency
- Differences in skills proficiency related to age
- Differences in skills proficiency related to gender
- Differences in skills proficiency related to socio-economic background
- Differences in skills proficiency related to educational qualifications
- Differences in skills proficiency related to country of origin and language
- Differences in skills proficiency related to occupation
- Summary

Chapter 4. How Skills Are Used In The Workplace
- Using skills in the workplace
- The level of education required for the job
- Exploring mismatch between workers’ skills and job requirements
- Summary

Chapter 5. Developing And Maintaining Key Information-Processing Skills
- Overview of education and training and practice-oriented factors linked to developing and maintaining proficiency
- Age, ageing and proficiency
- Educational attainment and its relationship to proficiency
- Adult education and training and proficiency
- Work-related practices that optimise the use and development of skills
- Social, cultural and other daily practices that help to develop and maintain skills
- Summary

Chapter 6. Key Skills And Economic And Social Well-Being
- Skills proficiency, labour market status and wages
- Social outcomes of literacy, numeracy and problem solving in technology-rich environments
- Summary

Annex A. OECD Skills Outlook Tables of results

Annex B OECD Skills Outlook additional tables

Website: OECD iLibrary http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/

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