Explaining Skill Gaps in Canada: Adult Learning and Inequality

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Description of Research Project

This study asks why large gaps in adult skills persist in Canada and how the forces behind those gaps have changed over time. Canada invests heavily in education and training, yet sharp differences in literacy, numeracy, and problem solving in technology-rich environments continue to divide provinces and population groups. Public results from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) show that proficiency varies systematically by age, immigration status, language background, and socioeconomic position. Older adults score lower than younger cohorts, and Canadian-born adults outperform immigrants on average. These differences matter because foundational skills influence access to work, job quality, earnings, and participation in social and civic life. Existing research documents these patterns but rarely explains how they arise, why they persist, or whether their underlying drivers change. This study addresses that gap by identifying the educational, workplace, and social processes that account for adult skill levels and by comparing those processes across Cycle 1 and Cycle 2 of PIAAC.

The analysis relies on PIAAC microdata because this survey uniquely combines direct assessments of adult skills with detailed information on schooling, training, work histories, job tasks, and everyday skill use. Treating the two cycles as repeated cross-sections allows population-level comparison over time without tracking individuals. This structure supports the study of change while respecting what the data can support.

The investigation advances through a sequence of connected questions. It begins by documenting how skill distributions differ between cycles across provinces, age groups, immigration status, language background, and socioeconomic position. It then identifies the factors most closely associated with proficiency in Cycle 2, including educational attainment, parental education, participation in formal and informal learning, workplace task complexity, employment conditions, and the frequency with which people use skills at work and in daily life. The analysis next evaluates whether differences in skill-use environments explain why groups and regions display different skill levels and why those patterns shift over time. Finally, it examines how skills connect to outcomes such as employment, occupation, job quality, earnings, self-rated health, trust, civic engagement, and social participation, and whether these relationships differ across groups and across cycles.

Methodologically, the study follows PIAAC’s technical standards. All analyses use survey weights, plausible values for proficiency, and replicate weights to ensure accurate estimates. The empirical process begins with descriptive profiles of skill distributions and moves to regression models that relate proficiency to the full set of feasible predictors in the dataset. Interaction terms test whether relationships differ for equity-deserving groups. Decomposition methods distinguish differences in characteristics from differences in how those characteristics translate into skills. Outcome models then connect proficiency to economic and social results and reveal how returns to skills vary across groups and over time.

This research moves beyond cataloguing inequalities and explains what produces them. It identifies the mechanisms that drive adult skill gaps, shows which of those mechanisms change across cycles, and highlights the levers in education, learning, and workplace practice that offer the strongest potential to narrow disparities. By integrating distributions, mechanisms, and outcomes in a single empirical framework, the study fills a gap in Canadian PIAAC research and provides evidence that policymakers, educators, workforce organizations, and community groups can use to strengthen adult skills and expand opportunity.

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Undergraduate Student Responsibilities

- Support the preparation and organization of PIAAC microdata, including variable documentation and data dictionaries.
- Conduct literature reviews on adult skills, labor-market outcomes, and PIAAC-based research in Canada and internationally.
- Assist with descriptive analysis of skill distributions across demographic and regional groups.
- Help construct analytic variables related to education, training, skill use, and employment characteristics.
- Produce tables, figures, and summaries that communicate results clearly to non-technical audiences.
- Contribute to drafting sections of reports, briefs, and presentations under faculty supervision.
- Participate in team meetings focused on research design, interpretation of findings, and knowledge mobilization.
- Learn and apply best practices for working with complex survey data, including weighting and documentation standards.
- Maintain organized project files and version-controlled code to support reproducibility.
- Engage in regular feedback and reflection to build quantitative and research communication skills.

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Qualifications Required

- Upper-year undergraduate standing in a Liberal Arts and Professional Studies program with a strong academic record
- Completion of at least one advanced course in statistics, research methods, or quantitative analysis
- Working knowledge of a statistical package such as Stata, R, or SPSS
- Ability to clean, organize, and manage structured datasets with precision
- Proven capacity for analytical writing in research-based coursework
- Ability to read, interpret, and synthesize technical and policy-oriented material
- High level of care in handling data, tables, and documentation
- Strong organizational skills and capacity to manage a multi-stage research workflow
- Ability to work independently within a guided research plan and integrate detailed feedback