In most OECD and partner countries, young men are more likely than young women to lack an upper secondary qualification, with an OECD average of 15% for young men and 12% for young women in 2023. The gender gap reaches 10 percentage points in Estonia. Bulgaria, India, Indonesia and Türkiye and Peru are the exceptions, where the share of young women with below upper secondary attainment is higher than the share of young men with the same educational attainment.
Education attainment
Educational attainment is gauged by the percentage of the population with formal qualifications at various levels. It often acts as a proxy for human capital and individual skill levels.
Key links
Key messages
Although the timing varies somewhat across countries, the increase in tertiary attainment has been a nearly universal trend. Countries that started with low tertiary attainment levels in 2000 have experienced strong growth. The share of tertiary-educated 25-34 year-olds quadrupled in Türkiye, from 9% in 2000 to 40% in 2021. Similarly, rates increased from 13% to 47% in Portugal and from 11% to 39% in the Slovak Republic over the same period. However, countries that had already high tertiary attainment levels in 2000, such as Ireland and Korea, have also experienced strong growth between 2000 and 2021: from 30% to 63% in Ireland and from 37% to 69% in Korea.
Upper secondary education programmes can be divided into two categories by their orientation: general programmes aim to prepare students for tertiary education, while vocational ones focus mainly on preparing them for labour-market entry (although some vocational programmes also commonly act as a route to tertiary education). On average across OECD countries, 23% of 25-34 year-olds attained vocational upper secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary education, compared to 18% with a general qualification at the same educational attainment level.
Context
Educational attainment of 25-64 year-olds
On average across OECD countries, 40% of adults (25-64 year-olds) have a tertiary credential as their highest level of education, another 40% have attained upper secondary or post secondary non-tertiary education, while 20% have not obtained an upper secondary education. However, differences among OECD countries are large: more than 50% of adults in Costa Rica, Mexico and Türkiye lack an upper secondary qualification, while more than 60% of adults in Canada have a tertiary credential.
Educational attainment among 25-64 year-olds (2022)
Difference between women and men in tertiary attainment
On average across OECD countries, 52% of 25-34 year-old women have tertiary attainment, compared to 39% of 25-34 year-old men, representing a 13 percentage-point difference. In Estonia, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia the difference is at least 20 percentage points favouring women.
Difference between the share of 25-34 year-old women and men with tertiary attainment (2020)
