Governments need to improve access to lifelong learning to narrow skills gaps and ensure everyone is equipped to succeed in today’s labour markets. Socio-economic background remains a major factor in differences in skills, highlighting the need to enhance training opportunities and draw on untapped human potential, according to a new OECD report.
The OECD Skills Outlook 2025 provides new analysis on how factors beyond people’s control - such as parental education and occupation, gender, immigrant background and where people grow up - influence skills development and career opportunities.
Adults with at least one tertiary-educated parent score higher in literacy and numeracy skills than those without tertiary-educated parents. Differences in access to learning opportunities explain around half of socio-economic differences in skills among adults.
Differences in socio-economic background also shape labour market outcomes. Adults whose parents completed tertiary education earn, on average, 11% more per hour than their peers from less advantaged families.
“Our analysis shows that differences in labour market outcomes are largely explained by gaps in education, skills and lifelong learning, making clear the key role that skills policies play in fostering equality of opportunity,” OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann said. “To enhance equality of opportunity and draw on our societies’ full human potential, countries need to strengthen early childhood education and provide targeted school support while making adult learning easy to access, affordable and aligned with labour-market needs.”
Disparities between men and women vary across skills. On average, women outperform men in literacy, but men outperform women in numeracy and adaptive problem solving. The gender gap in numeracy is largest among the highest-skilled adults, reflecting a “glass ceiling” for women in numeracy-intensive domains. The gap is also larger among adults with tertiary-educated parents than among adults with non-tertiary educated parents.
Socio-economic gaps narrow during compulsory schooling but widen again afterwards, as education systems and workplaces continue to perpetuate advantage.
Opportunities for adult learning are also unequally distributed and often reinforce initial skills gaps. On average, two in five adults participate in non-formal learning but this breaks down to three in five among tertiary-educated adults and only one in five among those with below upper secondary education.
The Skills Outlook lays out a series of recommendations for how governments can tackle these issues. The quality and relevance of education and adult training should be improved. Action is needed early on, by ensuring access to high-quality and affordable early childhood education and care and countries must build adult learning systems that are easy to access, affordable, and closely aligned with labour-market needs, especially for adults with lower skill levels.
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