Comparative report

Adult learning is essential to keep skills relevant throughout life, and to be able to respond to evolving labour market demands and to support workforce adaptability. To tackle the skills and labour gaps that undermine the EU’s competitiveness and prosperity, the European Commission has committed to an overarching skills strategy under the Union of Skills, which reaffirms the need to prioritise adult learning and continuous upskilling throughout life. In addition, more attention is placed on basic skills as a precondition for future skills development. This is reflected in the Action Plan on Basic Skills which is part of the Commission’s overarching Union of Skills strategy. This chapter presents the latest evidence on adult learning, including the development of basic skills.

7.1. Adult participation in learning

More adults need to participate in learning opportunities to ensure that Europe’s ageing population can keep up with a fast-changing labour market. That is why EU countries adopted EU-level targets for adult learning participation for 2025 and 2030. While Member States are increasing their focus on lifelong learning, the participation rate stood at only 39.5% in 2022 according to the Adult Education Survey (AES) (Figure 34) with high variability between countries.

While the target for participation in adult learning is based on the Adult Education Survey (AES), additional insights into adults' involvement in learning activities can be gained from other surveys, such as the biennial EU Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) and the OECD’s Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC). According to EU-LFS, adult participation in learning stood at 28.5% in 2024, up from 25.1% in 2022. These significantly lower participation rates recorded in the EU-LFS have possibly been underestimated due to methodological limitations. In 2024, participation rates increased in almost all countries, ranging from Malta (4.3 percentage points) to Hungary (26.2), which bodes well for adult learning participation rates. In addition, PIAAC 2023 recorded a 40.8% average participation in formal and non-formal learning across the 20 participating EU countries, which is similar to the levels of the 2022 AES .

Participation in adult learning varies greatly across population groups. Despite considerable differences in overall participation levels between EU-LFS, AES and PIAAC, the patterns of participation based on population characteristics are consistent across the three surveys. Younger adults are more likely to participate in education and training than older individuals. Similarly, employed adults participate in learning far more frequently than those who are unemployed or outside the labour force. Educational attainment also influences participation rates, with highly educated adults significantly more likely to engage in learning than those with lower levels of education.

While characteristics such as age, employment status, and educational attainment strongly affect the likelihood of taking part in learning, on the surface, gender has a more limited impact, with women participating only slightly more than men. However, a more detailed look at the data, reveals significant differences in barriers to and drivers for participation in adult learning by sex, which indicates pointing to the need for differentiated policy responses.

While women have participated more in learning in recent years, this has not always been the case. Figure 35 shows the gender gap between women and men between 2005 and 2024. It covers: (i) participation in education and training overall; (ii) participation in job-related non-formal learning; and (iii) participation in continuing vocational training (CVT) courses. According to the AES, women recorded lower overall participation rates than men from 2007 to 2015, and caught up with men only in 2016. There was an even larger gender gap in job-related and CVT courses. While this gap has also narrowed over time, the female participation rate in job-related and CVT courses remains below or similar to that of men. This is particularly true for participation in job-related learning sponsored by the employer, which is the largest share of job-related training.

Women are more likely to report personal barriers to participating in adult learning. In 2022, 8.9% of women cited such barriers, compared with 4.8% of men. Among women, the most frequently reported obstacles were schedule (37.2%), followed by costs (31.6%) and family reasons (31.5%). Men also most commonly cited schedule (42.4%) and costs (25.2%) but were more likely than women to mention a lack of support from the employer (20.7%). While the proportion of women citing family reasons has declined from 45.4% in 2007, it remains considerably higher than among men. The largest gender gaps are for family reasons (12.0 percentage points) and costs (6.4), which are both more commonly cited by women. When asked to identify the main barrier to participation, among those mentioned previously, both men and women report schedule (26.9% and 19.3% respectively). For women, however, family reasons followed closely at 18.7%, compared with just 9.3% for men.

Limited formal childcare support and challenges to maintaining work-life balance can lead women to avoid careers that require frequent skills development. The lower overall employment rate of women and the higher uptake of part-time work can lead to fewer instances of job-related learning. Aside from reinforcing gender employment gaps and gender pay gaps by concentrating women and men in different sectors and occupations, the lower participation in job-related learning negatively affects women’s reintegration into the labour market following a career break due to childcare responsibilities.

7.2. Adult basic skills

The OECD’s 2023 Survey of Adult Skills shows that literacy, numeracy and problem-solving skills are interconnected (Figure 36). These skills are not isolated but rather influence each other, forming a foundation for personal and professional success. Despite efforts to strengthen adult learning over the past decade, literacy skills declined across the 17 EU countries participating in both cycles of the survey, with statistically significant drops in Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Austria, Czechia, and France. Significant improvements in literacy were observed only in Finland and Denmark. Numeracy remained comparatively stable, with significant declines observed only in Poland, Lithuania, Slovakia and Hungary.  Only Finland, Estonia, Denmark and the Netherlands made significant progress in numeracy.

Around one in five adults (21.8%) in the EU underachieve in both literacy and numeracy (Figure 37). There are substantial differences across EU countries with one in three adults underachieving in Portugal (34.1%) and only one in ten in Sweden (8.8%). Adults with low proficiency in one domain are also likely to have low proficiency in other domains because the three domains are highly correlated. Moreover, over the last decade no EU country recorded a significant decrease in underachievement in literacy and only Finland reported a significant decrease in numeracy underachievement (-3.8 percentage points).

The Union of Skills focuses also on digital skills, reconfirming not only the 2030 EU-level target on computer and information literacy among eighth graders (Section 2.2), but also Europe’s Digital Decade target of at least 80% of adults having basic digital skills by 2030. In 2023, only 56% of people aged 16 to 74 in the EU possessed at least basic digital skills. Figure 38 shows the association between the share of adults with at least basic digital skills and those with at least basic literacy skills. The correlation is moderately positive (a correlation coefficient of 0.71), suggesting that countries with higher shares of adults with at least basic proficiency in literacy are likely to perform better in basic digital skills too.

Reskilling and upskilling initiatives, such as individual learning accounts can help people access training opportunities and increase their motivation to participate. While these initiatives focus on the whole working-age population, additional support can be provided for those most in need such as individuals with low basic skills. Moreover, vulnerable groups such as persons with disabilities or with migrant background can be targeted with specific actions to harness their ‘untapped potential’ in the labour market, as acknowledged in the Union of Skills.