Silver Lining – a study of employability and learning trajectories of late career

learners

Active ageing and its impact on skills, employability and other outcomes

Oslo, Silver Lining seminar, June 2019

Professor Richard DesjardinsUCLA Department of Education

Importance of active ageing for skills and other outcomes

§ ‘Active ageing’Increasingly important policy concept in ageing societies

Leads to positive outcomes into older ages (successful ageing)

Increased employment & productivity

Continued learning

Health and other well-being

Maintenance of cognitive skills

§ The relationship between age and skills matters in the context ofIncreases to life expectancy

Increases to the average age of the workforce

Debates on extending the retirement age

Understanding what drives skill gain/loss over the lifespan in terms of individual behaviour and institutional differences

Empirical patterns of age-skill profiles in the research literature

§ Age and cognitive skills tend to be negatively relatedThis is a consistent finding based on numerous studies that use different methods (cross-sectional, longitudinal)

Pattern is observed for basic cognitive skills (reasoning, memory, processing speed) and cognitive foundation skills (literacy, numeracy and problem solving)

§ Peak ages differ depending on method and specific measureCross-sectional profiles tend to show a negative slope starting earlier

§ Measures of cognitive mechanics tend to show earlier declinesMeasures of ‘cognitive mechanics’ (reasoning, speed, memory) start high at

16-20 and tend to show a negative slope beginning in early 20s

Measures of ‘cognitive pragmatics’ (vocabulary, knowledge) start low at 16-20, and tend to show positive slope until mid 50s, and then negative slope thereafter

Age-skill profiles in PIAAC

Literacy skill at Level 3 or higher by age

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

21-35 36-50 51-55 56-60 61-65

Norway Finland Denmark Germany Netherlands

UK US Korea Sweden

Percent

Interpreting age-skill profiles

§ Why do we observe negative slopes in the average trend?Complex mix of individual and social factors affecting skill gain & loss over time across cohorts and over the lifespan within cohorts

§ Are cognitive skills of young adults rising over time? (cohort effects)Systematic change over time to the quality of education, other institutions or

other social factors (pervasive use of text in ICTs at earlier and earlier ages)

§ Are cognitive skills of adults declining as they age? (ageing effects)Skill loss due to neurological ageing

Skill loss due to individual behaviours (use-it-or-lose-it):

low mental, physical and social activity

§ Trend based on single cross-section difficult to interpretDrawing on other research to interpret profiles based on PIAAC is essential

Repeated cross-sectional measures (IALS & PIAAC) useful to estimate whether cohort & ageing effects exist but only at age-cohort level

Longitudinal measures useful to estimate whether ageing effects exist at the individual level

Identifying why cohort & ageing effects exist remains difficult with any design

The added value of analysing age-skill profiles with repeated measures

§ PIAAC offers a unique opportunity to examine trends at cohort level by providing repeated measures of literacy skills for a number of countriesIALS results made comparable to PIAAC results

§ As part of a special issue of the European Journal of Education produced by our project “Silver Lining” we invited two papers to analyse ageing and skills on basis of PIAAC and IALSBarrett & Riddell – Ageing and skills: the case of literacy skills

Calero et al. – Education, age and skills: An analysis using PIAAC data

§ Results confirmedAge related decline of cognitive skills

Variations across countries suggesting institutional and practice-related differences (e.g. educational quality, pensions systems)

Linking PIAAC to other research

§ Evidence suggests that age-related decline occurs on average

§ Evidence also suggests that it may be possible to mitigate, delay or prevent cognitive declineEducation and training

Other activities: physical, social and mental activities

§ Observed trends are based on averagesIndividual trajectories vary

Some estimates suggest that up to 1/3 of adults considered ‘successful agers’

§ An important role for public policy is to identify the factors that may be involved in ‘successful ageing’

Average trend, zone of possibility, and individual trajectories

20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110

Cogn

itive

skills

Chronological Age

Average trend Zone of possibility Person A Person B Person C

High

Low

Source: Hertzog et al. (2009)

Experimental evidence on the impact of physical activity in old age on different types of cognitive

tasks

Source: Colcombe and Kramer (2003)

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

Executive tasks Controlled tasks Spatial tasks Speed tasks

Effe

ct s

ize

(g)

Task type

No exercise (control group)

Exercise

Empirical evidence suggesting that formal adult education in mid to late life related to maintenance

of cognitive skill into older ages§ Two papers on this in special issue

Desjardins

Midtsundstad & Nielsen

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

UK

Finland

Swede

n

Norway

Denmark US

Netherl…

Germany

Korea

Percent Attained highest qualification at 36+

Results of multivariate analysis

§ Key findingsAttaining qualifications at older age

• Boosts cognitive skills into older ages• Promotes learning (NFE activity) into older ages

• Boosts health into older ages• Promotes employment into older ages

Higher levels of skills, non-formal education activity and health are associated

• with higher probabilities of employment into older ages • reduced chance of disability, unemployment and more generally

inactive aging

Attaining qualifications at older age (36+) boosts cognitive skills into old age

200

210

220

230

240

250

260

270

280

50 52 54 56 58 60 62 64

Less than ISCED 3 ISCED 2 at 36+ ISCED 3 ISCED 3 at 36+ISCED 5B ISCED 5B at 36+ ISCED 5A ISCED 5A at 36+

Literacy score

Silver age

Attaining qualifications at older age (36+) promotes employment into old age

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1

50 52 54 56 58 60 62 64

Less than ISCED 3 ISCED 2 at 36+ ISCED 3 ISCED 3 at 36+ISCED 5B ISCED 5B at 36+ ISCED 5A ISCED 5A at 36+

Probability

Silver age

Attaining qualifications at older age (36+) promotes learning into old age

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

50 52 54 56 58 60 62 64

Less than ISCED 3 ISCED 2 at 36+ ISCED 3 ISCED 3 at 36+ISCED 5B ISCED 5B at 36+ ISCED 5A ISCED 5A at 36+

Probability

Silver age

Health and continued learning (NFE activity) boosts probability of employment into old age

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1

50 52 54 56 58 60 62 64

Less than ISCED 3 ISCED 5A ISCED 5A at 36+, healthy, and active aging (NFE)

Probability

Silver age

Implications

§ Educational interventions in later life can matter for skillsIt turns out also for a range of outcomes (employment, earnings, active aging)à Continued adult learning (formal and non-formal) very important

§ Key takeawaysOpen and flexible qualification systems that cater to older adults promote active aging

Active aging (defined in multiple ways) has impacts on employment and skills

Additional work in progress

At least two types of reading once a week (at work) by age

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

21-35 36-50 51-55 56-60 61-65

Norway Finland Denmark Germany NetherlandsUK US Korea Sweden

Percent

Additional work in progress

§ Recurring practices over the lifespan such as reading, writing and numeracy related behaviours including at workcan have substantial impactsFollows from practice engagement theory

Alternatively, the ‘use it or lose it’ or ‘intellectual challenge’ hypotheses

à Active ageing very important

§ Additional implications Related to occupation and production structures

For how work is organized and tasks are distributed