BackgroundEducational qualifications and literacy skills are highly related. This is not surprising as it is one aim of educational systems to equip individuals with competencies necessary to take part in society. Because of this relationship educational qualifications are often used as a proxy for “human capital”. However, from a theoretical perspective, there are many reasons why this relationship is not perfect, and to some degree this is due to third variables. Thus, we want to explore the net relationship between educational attainment (harmonized according to the International Standard Classification of Education, ISCED) and literacy skills, and how much skills vary within education levels across countries.MethodsWe use data from 21 countries from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies 2012. This paper compares the literacy skills of adults who achieved different levels of educational attainment across countries. Given the high degree of educational differentiation in most countries, we do this using a more differentiated educational attainment variable than what is commonly used. In our analyses we firstly adjust for factors that are likely to affect access to education and the acquisition of educational qualifications and literacy skills, such as parental education and language and migration background. In a second step, we also take into account factors affecting skill development after initial formal education, such as occupation and skill use at home.ResultsWe firstly find a high degree of heterogeneity of skills across countries for equivalent education categories. Secondly, we find skill similarities for equivalent education categories classified at different broad education levels, sometimes even breaking the hierarchical order of ‘higher education entails higher competencies’.ConclusionWe conclude that ISCED levels cannot be taken as a cross-nationally comparable proxy for human capital in terms of literacy skills, and that education has to be harmonized in a substantively more meaningful way in future adult literacy surveys.

中文翻译：

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胜任程度：各国学历与成人技能之间的关系

背景教育资格和读写能力高度相关。这不足为奇，因为这是教育系统的目标之一，是使个人具备参与社会所必需的能力。由于这种关系，教育资格常常被用作“人力资本”的代名词。但是，从理论上讲，这种关系不完善的原因有很多，在某种程度上，这是由于第三个变量引起的。因此，我们想探讨受教育程度（根据《国际教育标准分类法》（ISCED）进行了协调）与识字技能之间的净关系，以及各个国家教育水平之间技能的差异。 《 2012年成人能力国际评估》。本文比较了在不同国家获得不同水平教育水平的成年人的识字能力。鉴于大多数国家/地区的教育分化程度很高，我们使用比通常使用的教育程度差异更大的教育程度变量来实现此目的。在我们的分析中，我们首先针对可能影响受教育机会以及获得教育资格和识字技能的因素进行调整，例如父母教育，语言和移民背景。在第二步中，我们还考虑了影响初次正规教育后技能发展的因素，例如在家中的职业和技能使用情况。结果我们首先发现各国在同等教育类别下技能的高度异质性。其次，