1301.0 - Year Book Australia, 1999
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 24/02/1999
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AUSTRALIANS' LITERACY SKILLS: HOW DO THEY RATE INTERNATIONALLY?
Consistent with international practice, these are also referred to as the prose, document and quantitative scales. For each of these three scales, literacy skill levels were assessed on a continuum ranging from Level 1 (very poor skills) through to Level 5 (very good skills). Because Level 5 is a comparatively small group, Levels 4 and 5 are combined in most instances. International comparisons: an overview Table 10.18 compares the literacy skills of Australians aged 15-65 with those of people in six other countries, in terms of prose, document and quantitative literacy skills.
Unlike some other countries, such as Germany, Australia has basically the same distribution on each of the three scales. The overall pattern of Australians' literacy skills is similar to that of Canada and New Zealand, especially on the prose scale. Compared to some countries, the Australian distribution is less 'extreme' - for example, on the prose scale, 64% of people have skills at Level 2 and Level 3, whereas in the USA the equivalent figure is 58%. On the document and quantitative scales, the proportion of the German and Swedish population with very poor skills is about half that of Australia. In the remainder of this article, some of the analysis is based on the proportion of people that have reached the third of the literacy levels - this is because Level 3 is often regarded as the minimum level of competence needed to cope with the demands of everyday life and work. Two aspects are examined - the relationship between literacy and labour force participation, and between literacy and community participation. Literacy and labour force participation The rate of participation in the labour force (i.e. being either employed or unemployed, rather than not participating at all) by persons aged 25-65 is clearly related to literacy levels, but there is considerable variation across countries and across literacy scales - from a high of 87% of those with high literacy skills (Level 3 or better) on the quantitative scale, in Sweden and the United Kingdom, to a low of 57% of those with low skills (Levels 1 and 2) on the document scale in Germany. In Australia, about 65% of those with low literacy skills participate in the labour force i.e. are employed or unemployed); for those with high skills the equivalent figure is about 85%. The participation rate of those with low literacy is about the same in Australia as it is in Canada and the United Kingdom; it is higher than in Germany (61% on the prose scale) but lower than in New Zealand, Sweden, and the United States (70%, 71%, and 74% respectively on the prose scale). Of those aged 16-65 who are in the labour force, those with low literacy skills have a greater chance of being unemployed than do those who are highly skilled. In Australia, the unemployment rate for the former group (low skills) was 11.3%, more than double that of the latter - 4.6%. This magnitude of difference is the same as in other countries, with the exception of New Zealand where those with low literacy skills had an unemployment rate of 15.2%, four times that of the population with high skills. Among persons aged 25-65 who are employed, those with higher literacy skills generally earn more than those with lower skills, but again there are differences across countries, and across literacy scales. For example, in Australia, 58% of employed persons with good/very good prose skills (Level 4/5) are in the top 60% of earners. This compares with 26% of those with very poor skills (Level 1). By contrast, in Sweden the corresponding figures are 83% and 72%, and in New Zealand they are 73% and 34%. Literacy and community participation Participation in voluntary community activities outside of the formal labour market is an important consideration in many societies. Across all levels of literacy, in Australia 26% of people aged 25-65 participated in some voluntary community activity at least once a month. This figure is about the same as those for Canada and Germany, greater than in the United Kingdom (19%), but less than in Sweden (47%), the USA (34%) and New Zealand (33%). Across all of the selected countries, there is a positive relationship between literacy and voluntary community work - participation is more frequently associated with higher skills than it is with lower skills. For example, in Australia, 21% of those with low literacy skills on the prose scale participated compared to 29% of those with high skills. Of the six other countries, only two countries (Canada and the United Kingdom) had lower participation rates than did Australia among those with low literacy skills, and two (the United Kingdom, and Germany) had lower participation by those with high skills. However, the difference in the participation rates of the two groups was relatively large in Australia compared to most other countries - only in Canada was the difference greater (14% of the low skilled compared to 30% of those with high skills). Document Selection These documents will be presented in a new window.
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