Nowadays, women outperform men in educational attainment in many countries. Still, large variation between countries remains. Emancipatory contexts in which individuals are raised might explain these differences in male-female educational attainment, both over time and across countries. This study examines individual and contextual factors that…

Ample evidence indicates that a person's human capital is important for success on the labor market in terms of both wages and employment prospects. However, unlike the efforts to identify the impact of school attainment on labor-market outcomes, the literature on returns to cognitive skills has not yet provided convincing evidence that the…

This article describes students' involvement and interest in exchange programmes in Swedish higher education. Law and Engineering bachelor's programmes were chosen to exemplify an over-represented and under-represented group respectively in terms of international mobility in this context. The study combines interview and survey data. The author…

In the wake of the technological revolution that began in the last decades of the 20th century, labour market demand for information-processing and other high-level cognitive and interpersonal skills is growing substantially. The "Survey of Adult Skills," a product of the OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Adult…

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the link between age and proficiency in information-processing skills, based on information drawn from the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC). The data reveal significant age-related differences in proficiencies, strongly suggesting that proficiency tends to "naturally" decline with age. Age…

Some commentators suggest that the individualisation of life stories reflects a discursive shift in the ways people talk about their lives rather than a substantive change in life patterns. However, elsewhere it is argued the individualisation of life experiences is one of the defining features of the contemporary era. This paper draws on…

This book, consisting of 17 chapters written by different authors, traces the progress that has been made in developing lifelong learning policies over the past 30 years and examines current challenges to lifelong learning policymakers. Focusing on a global agenda, the book is organized in six parts with thematic chapters following an introductory…