Results show that adults in Norway have high skills in literacy, numeracy and adaptive problem solving compared to 30 other countries that participated in the survey. Together with Finland, Japan, Sweden and the Netherlands, Norway is one of the countries with the highest skills in all three domains. In most countries, skills have declined in the past years. In Norway, however, there is a stable high skills level in literacy and numeracy skills have improved since 2012.
15 per cent of adults in Norway have low literacy skills and can only read simple texts, while 20 per cent are at the highest skill level. 13 per cent have weak and 22 per cent have very good numeracy skills. Both in literacy and numeracy the share of low-skilled has remained stable, while the share of high-skilled has increased between 2012 and 2023. The survey also assesses a new domain, adaptive problem solving. In this domain, 15 per cent have weak and 9 per cent have very good skills.
There are differences in skill levels between different groups, and these differences are more pronounced in literacy and numeracy compared to adaptive problem solving. Women have better literacy skills than men, while men score on average higher in numeracy. Skills also vary between different age groups. Those aged 20 to 24 years or 25 to 29 years have the highest skills in all domains, while age groups 16 to 19 years and 55 to 65 years have skills below the average for all adults in both literacy and numeracy. These patterns recur in most countries that participated in the survey. Educational attainment has an impact on skills and those with higher education have on average higher skills compared to those with a lower educational attainment. In addition, there are differences between immigrants and non-immigrants, where immigrants on average have lower skills than the rest of the population in all domains. Those who are employed have better skills in literacy and numeracy compared to those who are not employed, but there are also differences in skills when we compare different groups of employed. For instance, those working in the public sector have better literacy skills than those working in the private sector, and the full time employed have higher literacy and numeracy skills compared to those working part time. There are also differences between different professions and industries, that can reflect different requirements regarding competencies.
Skills have not evolved equally for all groups between 2012 and 2023. Women have improved their literacy skills, while the literacy skills of men have remained stable. Gender differences have shifted from being in favour of men in 2012, to being in the favour of women in 2023. Women have also had a bigger improvement in numeracy skills compared to men, and the gender differences in this domain have become smaller. There are also age differences in the evolvement of skills. Those aged 20 to 24 years and 50 to 54 years have better literacy skills in 2023 compared to 2012. In numeracy, all age groups between 16 and 29 years have improved their skills, and among young adults, the improvement in skills has been more pronounced in Norway compared to other countries.
How skills are used at work and in leisure time, varies with the skill level one has in literacy and numeracy. The higher the literacy skills, the more often literacy skills are used at work, and the same pattern also holds for numeracy. Literacy and numeracy are not only basic skills needed to function in today’s society but have also an impact on other aspects in life. For example, adults with high skills have better health, are more satisfied with life and have higher levels of trust in other people compared to adults with low skills.