Human Capital for Growthand Social Progress – the Role of

Social and Emotional Skills

Dirk Van Damme & Koji Miyamoto, OECD

NAEC Seminar, Paris, 10 October 2014

NAEC Synthesis Report (MCM 2014)

2.2.5 Investing in education and skills for all(…) “147. It is also important for policies to support the development of social and emotional skills, such as perseverance, resilience, conscientiousness, sociability and self-esteem. Recent evidence suggests that these non-cognitive skills can have a very significant impact on various measures of social progress, that they remain malleable beyond childhood and that they can be reliably measured…”

Purpose• To demonstrate that children need to develop diverse

capabilities including social and emotional skills to face the socio-economic challenges of the 21st century

• To suggest that enhancing children’s social and emotional skills is obvious yet untapped means to effectively address socio-economic challenges

• To inform that the OECD can play an important role by developing reliable and robust instruments to measure socio-emotional skills, collect data and conduct policy analyses

Outline• A broader view on skills that matter• Do social and emotional skills matter?• Are social and emotional skills relevant for

policy?• What can the OECD do?• Key messages

A BROADER VIEW ON SKILLS THAT MATTER

Dirk Van Damme

21st Century Skills

Ways of thinking•Creativity and innovation•Critical thinking, problem solving•Learning to learn, meta-cognition

Ways of working •Communication•Collaboration (teamwork)

Tools of working •Information literacy•ICT literacy

Living in the world•Citizenship – local and global•Life and career•Personal, social responsibility

Source: Microsoft-Intel-Cisco ATC21S project

Individual Skills for Innovation

Subject-based skills (know-what and know-how)

Skills in thinking and creativity

(Critical thinking, ability to make connections,

imagination, curiosity,...)

Behavioural and social skills

(Self-confidence, energy, perseverance, passion,

leadership, collaboration, communication)

How to explain the impact of educational attainment on various social outcomes?

Percentage of adults who are obese, by educational attainment (2011)PortugalSweden

The Netherlands5Italy2

CanadaDenmark

FinlandNorway

Ireland3OECD averageUnited States4

Slovenia1Poland

HungaryEstonia

Czech Republic

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18

Women

PortugalSwedenThe NetherlandsItalyCanadaDenmarkFinlandNorwayIrelandOECD averageUnited StatesSloveniaPolandHungaryEstoniaCzech Republic

024681012141618

Life expectancy differences between adults with 'tertiary educa-tion' and 'below upper secondary education'

Men

Difference in life expectancy by educational attainment at age 30 (2010)

How to explain the impact of educational attainment on various social outcomes?

Uni

ted

King

dom

Uni

ted

Stat

es

New

Zea

land

Chile

Aust

ralia

Cana

da

Icel

and

Hun

gary

Czec

h Re

publ

ic

OEC

D a

vera

ge

Esto

nia

Slov

enia

Pola

nd

Gre

ece

EU21

ave

rage

Slov

ak R

epub

lic

Isra

el

Irel

and

Belg

ium

Nor

way

Swed

en

Turk

ey

Fran

ce

Aust

ria

Spai

n

Net

herl

ands 1 0

10

20

30

40

50

Below upper secondary education Upper secondary education Tertiary education

%

Adults with a tertiary education are half as likely to be obese as those with only a below upper secondary education

Percentage of adults who are obese, by educational attainment (2011)

How to explain the impact of educational attainment on various social outcomes?

Japa

n

Esto

nia

Kore

a

Pola

nd

Czec

h Re

publ

ic

Slov

ak R

epub

lic

Spai

n

Italy

Swed

en

Aver

age

Engl

and/

N. I

r...

Irel

and

Aust

ralia

Flan

ders

(Bel

...

Finl

and

Den

mar

k

Ger

man

y

Aust

ria

Cana

da

Net

herl

ands

Nor

way

Uni

ted

Stat

es

0

10

20

30

40

Level 1 or below Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 or 5%

Certainly, foundation skills play an important role.

Proportion of adults reporting that they volunteer at least once a month, PIAAC literacy proficiency level (2012)

The relevance of a broad view on skills

• Growing evidence that people need to mobilise a highly diversified set of mutually reinforcing skills to develop behaviour that copes with contemporary challenges and risks:– Employment– Health– Political participation, civic engagement, social cohesion– Violence, bullying– Environmental behaviour

The analytical challenge

• Linking new insights from personality psychology and economics in addressing socio-economic challenges

• Novel empirical methodologies to come closer to demonstrating causal effects: taking into account measurement errors, endogeneity.

• Shedding light on interdependencies

What are social and emotional skills?

• Diverse labels used– non-cognitive skills, soft skills, character, personality, etc.

• Working definition– Relatively enduring patterns of thoughts, feelings and

behaviours that reflect the tendency to respond in certain ways under certain conditions

• Narrowing the scope– Relatively stable across contexts, malleable over time,

productive and measurable

• Characterising social and emotional skills

What are social and emotional skills?

OECD (forthcoming)

DO SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL SKILLS MATTER?

Koji Miyamoto

Do social and emotional skills matter?

• It can bring wider-benefits to the society– Literature reviews (Heckman, Kautz, Borghans and ter Weel)– Longitudinal analyses of 9 OECD countries

» Belgium (Flanders) Longitudinal Research in Secondary Education» Canada Young in Transition Study» Korea Korean Youth Panel Study» New Zealand Competent Children» Norway Young in Norway» Sweden Evaluation Through Follow-up» Switzerland Transition from Education to Employment» United Kingdom British Cohort Studies» United States Early Childhood Longitudinal Study

Do social and emotional skills matter?

Skills cognitive

socio-emotional

Outcomes adolescence and

adulthood

Tertiary education

Employment

Obesity

Depression

Violence

Life satisfaction

Do social and emotional skills matter?

OECD (forthcoming)

Do social and emotional skills matter?

OECD (forthcoming)

Do social and emotional skills matter?

OECD (forthcoming)

Do social and emotional skills matter?

OECD (forthcoming)

Do social and emotional skills matter?

OECD (forthcoming)

Do social and emotional skills matter?

OECD (forthcoming)

Do social and emotional skills matter?

• It can bring wider-benefits to the society– Literature reviews (Heckman, Kautz, Borghans and ter Weel)– Longitudinal analyses of 9 OECD countries

• It can enhance the powers of cognitive skills

Do social and emotional skills matter?

OECD (forthcoming)

Do social and emotional skills matter?

• It can bring wider-benefits to the society– Literature reviews (Heckman, Kautz, Borghans and ter Weel)– Longitudinal analyses of 9 OECD countries

• It can enhance the powers of cognitive skills• It can enhance the socio-economic returns to

education

Do social and emotional skills matter?

OECD (forthcoming)

Silver bullet?

• The importance of the “whole child”– There are no social and emotional skills that work for all outcomes– Skill complementarities “translating intentions into actions”

• Not always show positive effects (e.g., extraversion in Norway)

Self-reported obesity Self-reported eating disorders

OECD (forthcoming)

Silver bullet?

• Diminishing (and eventually negative) returns?– e.g., Extreme persistence and self-esteem

• Social and emotional skills can be valued differently across cultures– e.g., Modesty

• Social and emotional skills can be valued differently across contexts– e.g., Talent valued in Google “Smart creatives are impatient, outspoken risk-takers who are easily bored and change jobs frequently” (Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google).

ARE SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL SKILLS RELEVANT FOR POLICY?

Koji Miyamoto

Policy relevance

• Policy-makers, teachers and parents can shape it– Age differences in social and emotional skills

Policy relevance

10 20 30 40 50 6040

45

50

55

60Agreeableness

Age

Mea

n Sc

ore

Female

Male

helpful, unselfish, considerate, kind, forgiving, not quarrel

Soto, et al. (2008)

• Consistent with results from longitudinal studies

• Evidence suggest high malleability until adolescence (Cunha and Heckman, 2008 and Henkman, Cunha and Schennach, 2012)

Policy relevance

• Policy-makers, teachers and parents can shape it– Age differences in social and emotional skills– Successful intervention programmes: causal impact

OECD (forthcoming)

Policy relevance

Family involvement

Parent-child attachment Mentoring Programmes

Early Childhood

(0-4)● ● -

Abecedarian (US), Jamaican Supplementation Study, Head Start (US), Perry Pre-school (US), Chicago Child Parent Center (US), Sure Start (US)

Childhood(5-9) ● ○ -

Project Start (US), Seattle Social Development (US), Montreal Longitudinal Experimental Study (Canada)

Adolescence(10-18) ○ - ●

Big Brothers Big Sisters (US), Entrepreneurs for Social inclusion (US), Becoming a Man (US), Pathways to Education (Canada), National Guard Challenge (United States), Job Corps (US), Dominican Youth employment Program, Year-up (US), Joven (Chile)

Key features of promising intervention programmes

Policy relevance

• Policy-makers, teachers and parents can shape it– Age differences in social and emotional skills– Successful intervention programmes: causal impact

• Those targeted to disadvantaged family can be a cost-effective means to address social challenges– Helps reduce education, labour market and social inequalities– High rates of returns: good investment from a purely economic

standpoint

• It can be a new approach to economic challenges– Social and emotional skills as among the key education policies– Education policy as part of economic, social and health policies

Are policy-makers and teachers ready?

• The evidence-base is still limited• There are measurement challenges

Big 5 (Short scale): Conscientiousness

I see myself as someone who: tends to be lazy. does a thorough job.

Disagree strongly

Disagree a little

Neither agree or disagree

Agree a little

Agree strongly

Rammstedt and John (2007)

WHAT CAN THE OECD DO?

The role of the OECD

• Enhance the evidence-base

The role of the OECD

• Enhance the evidence-base• Improve measurement

– PISA 2012 and 2015– OECD Longitudinal Study of Skills Development in Cities

Framework – dynamics of skills development

6

Childhood

Early-Adolescence

Mid-Adolescence

Skill

Contexts

Late-Adolescence

Early-Adulthood

Age 10 15 20 23

Skill Skill Skill Skill

Contexts Contexts Contexts

Longitudinal Study of Skills Development in Cities

6

Skill

Age 10 15 20 23

Skill Skill Skill Skill

Labour market

CivicEngagement

Safety

Health behaviours

CivicEngagement

Safety

Health behaviours

CivicEngagement

Safety

Health behaviours

CivicEngagement

Safety

Health behaviours

Age>23Age>20Age>15Age>10

Canada(Ottawa)

Korea* (Seoul and Daegu)

Japan(Tokyo-Suginami)

Cities interested in participating

Russia(Moscow)

Brazil*(tbd)

Mexico(tbd)

* confirmed participation in the feasibility study

Norway*(Oslo)

Netherlands(tbd)

Argentina*(Buenos Aires)

UK*(tbd)

Chile*(tbd)

USA(tbd)

Colombia*(Bogota)

The role of the OECD?

• Enhance the evidence-base• Improve measurement

– PISA 2012 and 2015 – OECD Longitudinal Study of Skills Development in Cities

• Stimulate policy dialogue and communication– Informal Ministerial: “Skills for Social Progress” in Sao Paulo, Brazil

Key messages

• Improving learning contexts to enhance social and emotional skills can be part of policy-makers’ toolkits to address socio-economic challenges.

• The OECD can help drive the process in improving the measurements and expanding the evidence-base.

Thank youEducation and Social Progress (ESP) Project

eduesp@oecd.orgwww.oecd.org/edu/ceri/educationandsocialprogress.htm

www.oecd.org/site/espforum2014/

Koji MiyamotoHiroko Ikesako

Maria HuertaMarta Rilling

Dirk Van Damme