Skill acquisition and use across the life course: Current trends, future prospects

This study investigates whether, between 1981 and 2001, there have been significant changes in the timing and sequencing of the major life transitions of Australians, such as partnering, parenthood, entry to and exit from paid work and post-secondary education, and the implications of these changes.

This report is part of the larger research program, ‘A well-skilled future: Tailoring VET to the emerging labour market’.

• The life-course patterns of Australians have changed steadily, with the proportion following unconventional life trajectories slowly increasing between 1981 and 2001. Nevertheless, a majority of people continue to follow well-established conventional life-course pathways. These trends are likely to continue.
  
  
• The widespread acceptance of working motherhood and living alone are the major changes in standard life-course patterns. The withdrawal of prime-aged men (between 25 and 54 years) from the labour force and the rise of single parenthood are amongst the rising instances of unconventional life trajectories, as is an increased number of people beginning post-secondary education after their 20s.
  
  
• The vocational education and training (VET) sector has been significantly more affected by rising unconventional life trajectories than the university sector. In particular, its part-time student body has a growing proportion of people following unconventional life courses, notably commencing post-secondary education late, being single parents, and being prime-aged men without full-time work.
  
  
• Given the continuation of existing patterns of skill utilisation through the life course, the VET sector has an important opportunity for catering to the special circumstances of its increasingly unconventional part-time student body, thereby enhancing the employment opportunities of these relatively disadvantaged groups and increasing the supply of relevant skills to the Australian labour market.
  
  
• People in trades occupations display a distinct pattern, whereby they obtain training and enter the occupations by their mid-20s and then steadily exit the occupations over their working lives, beginning this exit soon after they qualify. This is in contrast to people in professional occupations who are trained and enter the occupations by their later 20s but who do not leave the occupations in substantial numbers until retirement.

This report is a component of a research program entitled ‘A well-skilled future: Tailoring VET to the emerging labour market’. This research program examines the evolving labour market and changing work organisation and management in the context of the vocational education and training (VET) sector and its role in the development of the appropriate levels, types and quantities of skills required to satisfy the future demands of Australian industry. The research reports have been produced by a consortium comprised of researchers from the National Institute of Labour Studies, Flinders University, and the Centre for Post-compulsory Education and Lifelong Learning of the University of Melbourne.

Many people follow conventional life-course pathways. In a predictable order and at predictable ages, they complete school, possibly undertake post-secondary education, enter paid work, partner, have children (and, if they are women, withdraw from paid work permanently or temporarily), and so on. Both researchers and policy-makers have found it useful to understand the standardised life-course model that guides most people through the key adult statuses. Recently, many commentators have suggested that established life-course models have been changing, altering the acceptability and frequency of various combinations of adult statuses. For example, combining motherhood with paid work has become more common and more acceptable. Other commentators have suggested a fracturing of standardised life-course models, such that people’s life trajectories are becoming much less likely to follow standard models and are much more unpredictable. This report asks whether either of these kinds of change is evident in Australia. It focuses on the likely future of skill-acquisition and skill-utilisation patterns in Australia, given the change in life-course patterns it finds.

There is no systematic existing research on this topic in Australia. However, the possibility of important life-course change is suggested by a range of research findings. These include: an apparent increased diversity in young people’s pathways through the school-to-work transition; more people living alone; more women combining paid work and motherhood; and increased labour market uncertainty, especially for men in prime-age groups (25–54). Changes like these have fuelled the claims of some social theorists concerning fundamental changes in life-course patterns. At the same time, overseas research looking systematically at how life-course patterns are shifting has found only limited evidence of change. Indeed, some overseas research has come to the conclusion that life-course patterns are more remarkable for their stability than for their change.

This report uses census data from 1981 to 2001, mostly taken from 1% household sample microdata files, to examine recent change in the life-course patterns of Australians. It confirms a number of well-known trends. First, Australians partnered and became parents at progressively later ages between 1981 and 2001, although it seems unlikely that further delaying of partnering and parenthood will continue. Second, women’s labour force participation has increased, so that a majority of women at every age group are now in the paid labour force. At the same time, men at prime ages have become less likely to be working, primarily because of a weakening labour market for men with low formal skills. Third, a successively greater proportion of each cohort of young adults has undertaken post-secondary education, as opportunities have expanded over the period. Post-secondary education opportunities have also been taken up by people at older ages. And women’s participation in post-secondary education has sharply increased at all ages, so that it now equals or exceeds that of men.

Against this background, this report develops two standardised life-course models—a ‘traditional’ model and a ‘modernised’ model. These models stipulate the normal progression through key life events such as post-secondary education, entry to paid work, partnering, parenthood etc. They differ in that the latter allows for women to undertake paid work and motherhood simultaneously. They imply that only certain combinations of statuses are possible if people conform to the models. There has been very little change in the overall proportion of adult (20 and over) Australians who are in non-conventional statuses at each Australian census since 1981, with about 36–38% being non-conventional on the ‘traditional’ model and about 25% being non-conventional on the ‘modernised’ model. However, evidence of change is much more substantial in the mature-adult age ranges (30–49) where, according to the ‘modernised’ model, the proportion in non-conventional statuses rose from about 26–27% in 1981 to 36–37% in 2001. More people in a wide range of non-conventional statuses explains this change. Amongst the most significant contributors are men’s falling labour force participation, the rise of single parenthood, people undertaking their first post-secondary education after their 20s, and increasing proportions living in groups with other adults after their 20s.

What do these changes mean for where skill acquisition takes place in the life course? A synthetic cohort analysis¹ of census data from 1981, 1991 and 2001 shows a quite sharp increase in the proportion of people in their 20s who undertook conventional post-school training, hardly surprising, given the well-known post-secondary education expansion during this period. However, amongst older cohorts, it appears that change was more differentiated, with a greater number of larger shifts in the proportion of women than men who completed qualifications at ages from 30 onwards. Moreover, women’s increased acquisition of post-secondary qualifications was probably more marked in non-degree qualifications than in degrees and above.

As a result, the composition of the post-secondary student body displayed much stability, but also some significant elements of change. First, the proportion of full-time students in conventional life-course statuses hardly changed between 1981 and 2001 (remaining at about 21–24%), although a smaller proportion was in training immediately after leaving school and more were upgrading existing qualifications. Secondly, the age distribution of college of advanced education/university students hardly changed, while that of TAFE/college² students aged somewhat. However, the proportion of part-time students in non-conventional life-course statuses increased sharply to just over half by 2001. Moreover, virtually all of this increase in diversity amongst part-time students was in the vocational education and training (VET) sector. The rising proportion of VET students in non-conventional life-course pathways arose from a variety of sources, including increasing proportions taking their first post-school qualification after the age of 29, more single parents, and more prime-aged men without full-time jobs.

The second focus of research was on how people offer their skills on the labour market over their lives, and whether this is changing. A limited synthetic cohort analysis of occupational pathways was used to examine this issue. It shows that patterns of skill utilisation are quite different across different occupations, and amongst women compared with men. Two key points in relation to skills imparted by the VET sector have been identified. First, tradesmen (the gendered term is intended) generally obtain their training and enter their occupations by their mid-20s. However, rather than remaining in their occupations as, for example, professionals tend to, they begin leaving them almost immediately and continue to do so at a fairly steady rate throughout the working-age ranges. Second, male clerical, sales and service workers appear likely to be gradually promoted to more responsible positions over their careers, thus reducing their involvement at more routine levels of these occupations at older ages. However, many women in these occupations leave their jobs (or, probably, reduce their hours) at prime childbearing ages, and then re-enter them at older ages. These older women are an important source of entrants to the more elementary and intermediate levels of these occupations. While the data are far from perfect, there is no evidence that any of these patterns of skill utilisation is changing substantially, beyond the generally increasing labour force participation of women which makes them more likely to use their skills at older ages.

Overall, there is evidence of both substantial stability and some change in the life-course patterns of Australians, and these trends will almost certainly continue. For the VET sector this has several key implications. First, training young school leavers will continue to be an important role for VET institutions, as will upgrading the qualifications of those who obtained their initial post-secondary education through a conventional training pathway. At the same time, the proportion of VET students, particularly those who are part-time and those who are not on conventional life-course trajectories is likely to continue to rise, making the VET student body increasingly diverse. Many of these students are relatively disadvantaged—single parents, men unable to find full-time jobs, people over 29 without post-secondary qualifications—and their labour market prospects will be substantially improved if they obtain VET qualifications. Some of these students will be men who can help to ease skill shortages arising from the steady outflow from traditionally male trades occupations, if they are successfully trained at later-than-traditional ages. Many are women who, if they acquire the relevant skills, may also help to supply upgraded skills to the elementary and intermediate clerical, sales and service occupations they tend to enter anyway.

¹ A synthetic cohort analysis involves tracing the characteristics of a particular cohort (group of people the same age) between censuses. For example, we might look at the number of people aged 20–24 with university degrees in 1996. By 2001 this group will be aged 25–29. A synthetic cohort analysis compares the number of 20 to 24-years-olds with degrees in 1996 with the number of 25 to 29-years-olds with degrees in 2001. Any increase in the number with degrees is due to people in this cohort gaining degrees during the period during censuses (i.e. between 1996 and 2001).

² This refers to census data collected between 1986 and 2001. In 1986 the category is ‘TAFE college’, since at that time technical and further education (TAFE) colleges were virtually the only source of VET qualifications. In 2001 the category is ‘technical or further educational institution (including TAFE colleges)’. Although these are self-report data, we can be reasonably confident that the 2001 category would capture most registered training organisations, public and private. The term ‘TAFE/college’ will be used throughout this report to cover this group.