Do Adults Have the Skills They Need? Scanning the International Headlines on the 2023 Survey of Adult Skills

Do adults have the skills they need to thrive in a changing world? That’s the question OECD asks in its report on the results from the 2023 Survey of Adult Skills. In many places, the answer seems to be maybe not. 160,000 16 – 65 year olds in 31 participating education systems took the test and only test-takers in Finland and Denmark improved their scores in literacy, with scores in the other participating systems remaining stable or declining since the data collection began in 2011. 8 of the 31 systems improved in math, but in both literacy and math the lowest-performing adults have shown the biggest decline in scores. Along with the latest scan of the headlines in the education sources we follow, this week’s post provides a brief summary of some of the key take-aways reported. Produced by OECD’s Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), this estimate of adult skills comes only a few weeks after the latest release of the results of the Trends in Mathematics and Science Survey (TIMSS), which assesses the skills of 15 year-olds (Around the World in Math and Science: Scanning the headlines on the results of TIMSS 2023).

Key Takeaways from the 2023 Survey of Adult Skills

Finland, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden excel in the three tested areas of literacy, numeracy, and problem solving, with significant percentages of adults showing “advanced” abilities.
Finnish high school graduates outperform those with college/tertiary education degrees in several countries, including Chile, Israel and Lithuania.
Adults who show high levels of skill in numeracy are 11 percentage points more likely to report very good or excellent health compared to those with low numeracy skills
On average, across participating systems, 18% of adults lack even the most basic levels of proficiency in any of the domains, but the performance of the top 10% has improved, leading to widening skills inequalities within countries
Adults with highly educated parents outscored those with “low-educated” parents by 50 percentage points in literacy
Singapore and the United States displayed the largest skills inequalities in literacy and numeracy
Disparities in educational attainment are largest in Israel, Switzerland, and Hungary (34 percentage points) and smallest in Spain (7 points)