Key messages

Lifelong learning and older workers

• People with higher levels of education qualifications tend to have high levels of engagement with the labour market. The relationship is particularly strong for women.
  
  
• Education levels of older cohorts will rise over coming decades as current, relatively well-educated cohorts age. Even with current education participation rates, this should lead to higher rates of engagement with the labour market among older groups, especially for women, than would otherwise be the case.
  
  
• This 'education effect' is even more important when working hours patterns are taken into account because the better qualified tend to work more hours (to a large extent because more are engaged in full-time employment).
  
  
• The education effect has been important in explaining the current working patterns. For males, the positive education effect has been against a long-term decline in labour force participation. For females, it has contributed to long-term increases.
  
  
• The education effect will partially offset the impact of the ageing of the population, but the demographic impact of the ageing population dominates. Factors other than education are also likely to impact on employment-to-population rates, and governments need to concentrate on work incentives and community attitudes as well as education and training, if they wish to increase the proportion of the population working.
  
  
• Lifelong learning has a role to play. Qualifications acquired later in life have as good, and in some cases, better, pay-off to employment-to-population rates for older age groups as do qualifications obtained at a young age.
  
  
• On the whole, the more qualifications the better, although the evidence on lower-level qualifications and incomplete qualifications improving employment rates is mixed.
  
  
• Older people who have undertaken training are more likely to retain their employment status relative to their employed peers not receiving training. So training appears to be helpful to maintaining employment. However, one explanation for this is that employers provide training to those they expect to retain as employees.

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