Life-long learning
Life-long learning is particularly important to support employability in the context of
population ageing, as the renewal of skills through the entry of young people in the labour
market diminishes and workers are considering working more at higher age.
The participation rate of workers with upper-secondary vocational education degrees in
life-long training has increased from 38% in 2010 to 47% in 2014. Nonetheless, vocational
education graduates participate less in lifelong learning (including informal training) than
university graduates (Behringer and Schönfeld, 2014). Employment rates of vocational
education graduates decline relatively quickly with age in particularly in Germany
(Hanushek et al., 2011) and earnings rise relatively little with experience.
These findings suggest that policies to encourage life-long learning for vocational graduates are
particularly important to maintain high employment prospects for them at high age.
EU Forecast
euf:ba18a:85/nws-01