 Ageing and literacy skills: Evidence from Canada, Norway and the United StatesDavid Green and W. Craig Riddell Labour Economics, 2013, vol. 22, issue C, 16-29 Abstract: We study the relationship between age and literacy skills in Canada, Norway and the U.S. — countries that represent a wide range of literacy outcomes — using data from the 1994 and 2003 International Adult Literacy Surveys. In cross-sectional data there is a weak negative partial relationship between literacy skills and age. However, this relationship could reflect some combination of age and cohort effects. In order to identify age effects, we use the 1994 and 2003 surveys to create synthetic cohorts. Our analysis shows that the modest negative slope of the literacy-age profile in cross-sectional data arises from offsetting ageing and cohort effects. Individuals from a given birth cohort lose literacy skills after they leave school at a rate greater than indicated by cross-sectional estimates. At the same time, more recent birth cohorts have lower levels of literacy. All three countries show similar patterns of skill loss with age, as well as declining literacy across successive cohorts. Keywords: Human capital; Literacy; Cognitive skills, ageing (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:labeco:v:22:y:2013:i:c:p:16-29 DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2012.08.011 Access Statistics for this article Labour Economics is currently edited by A. Ichino More articles in Labour Economics from Elsevier |
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