Recurrent Education, Earnings and Well-being
A Fifty-year Longitudinal Study of a Cohort of Swedish Men
Description:... A study investigated the contribution of adult education in complementing and mediating the effects of early formal schooling on life chances, job satisfaction, and general well-being. Data collected for the cohort of Swedish men followed up in the Malmo study from 1938 to 1988 were examined. The study used measures of home background, disposition to learn in the classroom, cognitive ability assessed in childhood and early adulthood, youth educational attainment, and indicators of occupational status, earned income, job satisfaction, and well-being measured during the early, middle, and late stages of life career. Measures of participation in adult education were available from 30 to 56 years of age. Path models were investigated using linear structural relations analysis. The findings indicate that: (1) youth education influences participation in adult education at all ages; (2) early participation in adult education also influences adult participation during subsequent periods; (3) relative to the diminishing effects of youth education on occupational status after 30 years of age, the effects of adult education on occupational status increase with increasing age; and (4) the direct effects of youth education on earnings increase sharply from 25 to 40 years of age and diminish gradually thereafter. The study concludes that research that has used short-term indicators of the effects of adult education has underestimated the contribution of adult education because participants have not been followed up for a sufficient length of time. In general, participants in adult education regard their lives as more worthwhile, full, rich, and interesting than those who do not take part. (Over 270 references, 43 tables, and 23 figures are included.) (Author/CML)
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