Adult Skills and Working Opportunities –

The contribution of the PIAAC project

An Introduction to the session

By Paolo Sestito

Theory and empirical evidence stress the relevance of human capital for:

• economic succes of individuals (wages and employment opportunities)

• non financial aspects of individuals well being and social behaviour (mortality risks, risk-taking behaviour..)

• societal outcomes (economic growth ..) with some hints that social returns may be even larger than private returns

Yet we have very imprecise measures of human capital

• maybe measurement error leads us to underestimate the impact of human capital

• Equating human capital to years fo schooling may confound the impact of credentials (signalling) with that of human capital

• In any case using years of schooling does not allow to consider the efficacy (and cost-effectiveness) of schooling [while a lot of evidence stresses the importance of teaching quality …]

• Which dimensions of skills matter? – Basic skills (early education) in order to facilitate

catching-up vs advanced (tertiary) education for societies close to the technology frontier?

– Learn to learning?– Interpersonal skills vs scientific knowledge?

Broad contents of PIAAC• Yet to be determined with a view to balance relevance of

the aspects under measurement and feasibility (of the measurement tools)gradual development

• At this stage:– Stress upon literacy in the information society– Focus upon the whole population and the general skills

• Differences across population groups• Some resolution for low skill people as well (we know too little of

such a problem-group)– Focus upon what people actually do (not what they have learnt)– Some reconstruction of the learning environment and learning

experiences– Focus upon the likely outcomes of the skills they have acquired– Cross countries perspective:

• Common frame and common endeavour: combine experimentation with economies of scale in research and development

• Use cross countries variability in working and learning systems in order to understand use and accumulation of skills

What is (will be?) missed in PIAAC• Not everything can be investigated by

PIAAC difficult choices and prioritization exercises have to be agreed upon

• Missing perspectives (for the time being):– Longitudinal view (upon skills build-up and

decay): possibly to be integrated, at least in some countries

– The demand side: what firms require and how demand and supply interact

– Individuals’ comparative advantage