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Adult Literacy Review: Household Survey

3 About our sample - qualifications and skills

While 15% of the adult population across Scotland is educated to degree level or above, a quarter of adults have no qualifications.¹

Those with no qualifications are more likely to be:

• Older - Over a third (36%) of those aged 45-65 have no qualifications, significantly higher than those aged
  16-34 (10%).
• Not working - 30% of those not working vs. 17% of those in work.
• In wholesale/retail trade & repair/hotels industrial sectors - nearly a quarter in this sector have no qualifications compared to 7% in the financial/real estate/renting & businesses sector.
• From lower income households - 40% of those from the lowest income group, significantly higher than 6% of the highest income group.
• Left school aged 16 or under (38%) compared to those who left school at 18 or over (1%).
• Have a disability - 45% of those with a disability have no qualifications compared to 21% in the population generally.

Over half (55%) of adults across Scotland left full-time education when aged 16 or younger. Unsurprisingly, this figure rises to two-thirds (67%) among the oldest age group. The proportion leaving school aged 16 or under is also significantly higher among those unemployed and looking for work (66%) than it is for those in work (51%).

In terms of industrial sector, employees in the agriculture/mining/fishing/construction sector, the manufacturing sector and the wholesale/retail trade & repair sector are more likely to have left school at 16 or younger (69%, 61% and 60% respectively) than employees in the financial/real estate/
renting/business (33%). Again, this is unsurprising as the financial sector employs a larger concentration of young people than the other sectors.

Again, there appears to be a correlation with income and disability; nearly three quarters (72%) of those in the lowest income group left school at 16 or under compared to 38% in the highest income group. Additionally, 76% of those with a disability left school at 16 or under compared to 55% for adults as a whole.

Figure 1 shows the ages at which full-time education was finished for adults across Scotland.

Figure 1: Length of full-time education
Length of Full-Time Education
Q36 How old were you when you finished your full-time education or training?

Base: 1,451 age 16-65 across Scotland, November 2000
Source: MORI

Footnote

¹ This compares to 23% having no qualifications as reported in the 1999 Scottish Household Survey, a continuous survey based on a sample of the general population in Scotland

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