A new OECD Survey of Adult Skills shows literacy and numeracy skills among adults have largely declined or remained stagnated over the past decade in most OECD countries.
The Survey measured the skills of around 160,000 16-65 year-olds across 31 countries. It looked at how literacy, numeracy and problem solving skills are used at work. It aims to provide insight of how developing and using skills improves employment prospects and quality of life as well as boosting economic growth.
One of the findings is that only Finland and Denmark have seen significant improvements in adult literacy skills over the past decade.
On numeracy proficiency, eight countries saw their average scores improve, with Finland and Singapore recording the largest gains. But in most countries, the literacy proficiency of the lowest-performing 10% of the population has declined, with similar declines in numeracy. At the same time, the performance of the top 10% has improved, leading to widening skills inequalities within countries. In 2023, Singapore and the United States displayed the largest skills inequalities in literacy and numeracy.
“Adults with higher numeracy skills are more likely to be employed, earn a higher wage, and report better health and life satisfaction than those with lower numeracy skills,” OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann said.
Finland, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden are the best-performing countries in all three domains — literacy, numeracy, and problem solving. Eleven countries (Chile, Croatia, France, Hungary, Israel, Italy, South Korea, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal and Spain) consistently perform below the OECD average in all skills domains.