Functional literacy, educational attainment and earnings: A multi-country comparison

Arbeitspapier

In this paper a rich and innovative dataset, the International Adult Literacy Survey, is used to examine the impact of functional literacy on earnings. We show that the estimated return to formal education is sensitive to the inclusion of literacy: excluding it biases the return to education in many countries by significant amounts. Literacy itself has a well-determined effect on earnings in all countries though with considerable variation in the size of the effect. The benefits of literacy do not only arise from increasing low levels of literacy: increases at already high levels generate substantial increases in earnings in some countries. In general we find little interaction between schooling and literacy though for a few countries they appear to complement each other.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Centre for Economic Research Working Paper Series ; No. WP03/19

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Denny, Kevin J. ; Harmon, Colm P. ; O'Sullivan, Vincent
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): University College Dublin, Department of Economics
• (where): Dublin
• (when): 2003

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/72411
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:41 AM CET