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Being able to swim empowers individuals to make choices, have agency, and be free to choose core aspects of their life, such as working safely on or near water. It is also associated with lifelong health benefits and reduces the risk of drowning. Using data from the Lloyd’s Register Foundation World Risk Poll 2019, this paper provides the first global estimates of adults’ ability to swim without assistance. Individuals in high-income countries are considerably more likely to report being able to swim without assistance than individuals in low-income countries. Disparities also exist within countries. In particular, women are less likely to be able to swim without assistance than men in virtually all countries, birth cohorts, and levels of education. Investing in reducing inequalities in life skills, such as swimming, can foster economic development and empowerment, especially in light of threats, such as climate change.

Understanding adults’ attitudes towards the environment is necessary to gauge the opportunities and challenges of creating effective and politically-feasible climate policies. Using data from the Wellcome Global Monitor 2020, the European Social Survey (Round 8), World Values Survey and EM-DAT, this paper examines how adults’ environmental attitudes vary within and across countries and details how environmental attitudes are associated with adults’ engagement in pro-environmental behaviours and support for environmentally-friendly policies. The paper explores whether the extent to which individuals prioritise the environment over the state of the economy or vice versa depends on individuals’ exposure to natural disasters or negative labour market conditions. Results indicate that people’s economic vulnerability and the sectors they work in impact their attitudes towards their environment and support for public policy. Furthermore, the findings suggest that increases in unemployment and exposure to natural disasters influence the extent to which individuals prioritise the environment.

This paper explores the relationship between adoption of ultra-fast broadband (UFB) and the export propensity of New Zealand firms. Previous literature have shown that the Internet facilitates exports by reducing search costs and informational frictions in establishing trade relationships. However, the role of faster Internet that enables the use of more recent, advanced, data-intensive digital technologies has not been well explored. This paper shows empirically that adoption of fibre broadband is associated with a higher propensity to enter exporting by New Zealand firms, suggesting that faster Internet has an additional role over traditional Internet in facilitating exporting. The paper also shows that firms that were already using the Internet more intensively prior to adopting fibre experience a stronger increase in export propensity following fibre adoption than those with less intensive Internet use, and that the positive relationship between fibre uptake and exporting is primarily observed among services firms. Instrumental variable analysis to assess the causal relationship between fibre uptake and exporting suggests that the higher export entry among fibre users is driven by self-selection of firms with higher export propensity into fibre uptake.

Indigenous peoples have rightful aspirations for their languages and cultures, supported under international conventions, jurisdictional treaties, laws, policies and enquiry recommendations. Additionally, the inclusion of Indigenous languages in education can impact positively on Indigenous students’ learning, engagement, identity and well-being, and can increase involvement of their communities in education. This working paper provides an overview of Indigenous languages learning in Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia and Canada. These three jurisdictions participate in an OECD initiative Promising Practices in Supporting Success for Indigenous Students, designed to help education systems to improve the experiences and outcomes of Indigenous students in education. The significance of Indigenous languages constitutes common ground between the diverse Indigenous peoples in these three countries. But learning in Indigenous languages and learning Indigenous languages follow diverse pathways with local language programme designs that fit the different historical and contemporary language contexts within and between the countries.

The paper is the first in a series of two papers mapping young people’s environmental sustainability competence in EU and OECD countries that were prepared as background for the forthcoming OECD Skills Outlook 2023 publication. The papers are the results of a collaboration between the OECD Centre for Skills and the European Commission - Joint Research Centre (Unit B4) on students’ environmental sustainability competence. The second paper is titled: ‘The environmental sustainability competence toolbox: From leaving a better planet to our children to leaving better children for our planet’.

The paper is the second in a series of two papers mapping young people’s environmental sustainability competence in EU and OECD countries that were prepared as background for the forthcoming OECD Skills Outlook 2023 publication. The papers are the results of a collaboration between the OECD Centre for Skills and the European Commission - Joint Research Centre (Unit B4) on students’ environmental sustainability competence. The first paper is titled ‘Young people’s environmental sustainability competence: Emotional, cognitive, behavioural and attitudinal dimensions in EU and OECD countries.

There is a discernible and growing gap between the qualifications that a university degree certifies and the actual generic, 21st-century skills with which students graduate from higher education. By generic skills, it is meant literacy and critical thinking skills encompassing problem solving, analytic reasoning and communications competency. As automation takes over non- and lower-cognitive tasks in today’s workplace, these generic skills are especially valued but a tertiary degree is a poor indicator of skills level. In the United States, the Council for Aid for Education developed an assessment of generic skills called the CLA+ and carried out testing in six countries between 2016 and 2021. This book provides the data and analysis of this 'CLA+ International Initiative'.

This case study is part of a series of case studies on the measurement of the impacts of centralised purchasing bodies on procurement efficiency and productivity. It looks at procurement practices and strategies, assesses their impacts on the effectiveness of the procurement system and their influence on the economy at large. It further establishes linkages between procurement strategies and national well-being indicators. The case study also looks at the enabling factors that are critical to achieve a comprehensive measurement of the multi-dimensional impacts of strategic public procurement.

This Trade and Gender Review of New Zealand draws on both quantitative and qualitative insights to provide a comprehensive analysis of the impact of trade, and trade policies, on New Zealand women as workers, consumers, and business owners and leaders. This Review sets out policy recommendations to help tackle the barriers that women face in engaging in trade and ensure that they share in the benefits from trade. Key recommendations include ensuring market access for goods and services that women produce and consume; incorporating gender provisions in trade agreements; trade facilitation reforms that particularly benefit women entrepreneurs; export promotion of women-led businesses; and ensuring diversity in trade policymaking.

This paper overviews structural reforms that promote the diffusion of digital technologies and investment in intangible capital that maximises the potential of these technologies in New Zealand. Effective use of digital technologies enables New Zealand citizens to participate in society in a more inclusive way, firms to strengthen competitiveness and better integrate into the global economy, and the government to offer better services. New Zealand has room to boost its relatively low productivity level by removing the structural bottlenecks holding back the expansion of its digital sector and digital innovation. There are severe shortages of specialised ICT skills owing to COVID-19-related border restrictions and a weak domestic pipeline of these skills that partly results from school students’ poor mathematics achievement. Some regulations have not kept pace with technological change and risk constraining digital innovation while failing to prevent harmful activities. More intensive use of digital tools is also held back by the low availability of high-speed Internet connections in rural areas and a lack of financial support for small businesses. Weak coordination between export promotion and innovation support prevents young firms investing in digital innovation from reaping high returns through exporting. New Zealand should rigorously implement its new national digitalisation strategy so that government agencies and social partners can advance digital transformation.