The OECD Skills Outlook 2025 examines how countries can build the 21st-century skills needed to sustain growth and social progress. It explores how differences in background, education and opportunity shape who develops, uses and benefits from key skills such as literacy, numeracy and adaptive problem solving. Differential access to skills development limits the potential of many, thereby constraining economic performance. Socio-economic background strongly influences who builds skills that are valued in the labour market, whereas differences between men and women appear mainly in how skills are used and rewarded. As skill demands evolve faster than policy cycles, investing in lifelong learning and using timely labour-market intelligence are crucial to help people adapt, strengthen productivity and ensure that no one is left behind in a changing world.
OECD Skills Outlook 2025
Introduction
Background shapes 21st century skills
Information-processing skills, including literacy, numeracy and adaptive problem solving, remain unevenly distributed across populations in OECD countries. For example, adults whose parents attained tertiary education score, on average, about half a standard deviation higher in all three core skills than those whose parents did not.
Growing up in a city is also associated with stronger skills than being raised in villages, although much of this difference reflects differences between the two groups in socio-economic background. Differences between men and women are smaller and vary by skill: women have higher proficiency in literacy, while men have higher proficiency in numeracy and adaptive problem solving.
Skills also tend to differ by immigrant background, reflecting differences in learning opportunities and language exposure. Skill levels vary by age, peaking in young adulthood and declining thereafter. The size and direction of these differences vary across countries, reflecting diverse education systems, labour markets and social contexts.
How learning evolves across the life course
The types of training activities adults pursue differ according to workers’ socio-demographic background and their educational attainment. Women are more likely to engage in courses on communication, customer relations, reading and writing, or foreign languages, whereas men are over-represented in training on machinery operation, security, computer or software skills, and project management.
Adults whose parents obtained tertiary-qualifications are more likely to engage in training that strengthens transferable or high-value skills, such as project management, numeracy and foreign languages, whereas those without tertiary educated parents are more likely to participate in job-specific or compliance-oriented training, such as security or equipment operation.
Similarly, adults with tertiary education tend to focus on advanced digital, analytical and managerial skills, while those with lower qualifications are concentrated in more task-specific training. These differences influence career progression and the potential for reskilling and upskilling. The size and direction of these differences vary across countries.
Skills and labour market opportunities
Access to opportunities to develop skills is a key driver of socio-economic differences in labour market outcomes. Differences in education and skills between adults with an advantaged and disadvantaged background explain a large share of the wage gap between the two groups.
For example, adults with parents who completed a tertiary degree earn 11% more than individuals with parents who did not obtain tertiary level qualifications, but this difference falls to less than 1% when comparing adults in the two groups with similar educational attainment and skills.
By contrast, differences between men and women exist even when men and women with similar education and skills are compared. Among those who work for pay, women earn about 14% less per hour than men, and the gap widens to 17% among adults with comparable education and skills. The size of these differences, and the extent to which education and skills explain them, varies across OECD countries.
