Skills and the Demand for Job-Related Training and Education in Adulthood

• In Event: Aging and the Life Course Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): 11: Employment, Job Quality, and Retirement

Abstract

Adults are engaging in more fluid life course pathways that combine work and schooling. Yet access to job-related education or training in adulthood (AET) remains stratified by both sociodemographic characteristics and labor market position. To the extent that cognitive skills, such as numeracy, reflect an individual’s probability of educational success, they may represent an additional barrier to or facilitator of AET. This may be especially true for those whose skills are under-matched to their jobs and whose jobs require more extensive use of those skills. Drawing on U.S. PIAAC data, we find that workers’ skill proficiency and use at work are related both to whether they patriciate in AET and whether they report a desire to have had more AET than they were able to undertake. Our findings are consistent with cumulative disadvantage; those with lower skills and those working in lower-skilled jobs have less access to skill-building opportunities.

Authors

• Patrick Denice, Western University

• Emma D. Cohen, American Institutes for Research

• Shahar Dangur-Levy, University of Western Ontario