Lifelong learning

Concepts and definitions in the LFS are in accordance with recommendations given by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and EU/Eurostat. Through its participation in the European statistical cooperation, Statistics Norway is bound to follow and fulfull the requirements set by Eurostat (EUs statistical bureau) for the contents of the LFS.

According to the international recommendations, persons above a specified age should be classified by their attachment to the labour market in a specified, short period, either a day or a week. In the Norwegian LFS the reference period is one week, and the sample of persons are classified in relation to their situation in that reference week.

Employed

Employed persons are persons who performed work for pay or profit for at least one hour in the reference week, or who were temporarily absent from work because of illness, holidays etc. Persons engaged by government measures to promote employment are also included if they receive wages. Persons who have been laid off up to three months are considered employed.

Lifelong learning

Lifelong learning is here defined as all organised learning activity undertaken throughout life, and which results in improving knowledge, know-how, skills, competences and/or qualifications for personal, social and/or professional reasons.

Education and formal education

Education and formal education includes all education leading to a qualification which is recognised in a (or the equivalent of a) national framework of qualification, e.g. elementary school, lower secondary school, modules or courses in upper secondary school, apprentices and practice candidates in upper secondary education, technical vocational schools, tertiary education giving official credit points and further education leading to a professional specialisation.

Formal supplementary education

Formal supplementary education includes education leading to a qualification which is recognised in a (or the equivalent of a) national framework of qualification. All formal supplementary education is also regarded as formal education, but not the other way around. Formal supplementary education is, in many cases, a specialization or an extention of a previously compleded education. In this statistics, formal supplementary education is defined as formal education taken by the following groups: 1) all persons aged 35-59 years that at the time of interview state that they have participated in formal education within the 12 past months, and 2) persons aged 22-34 years that at the time of interview state that thay have participated in formal education within the 12 past months, and at the same time have had a break/pause in their education of at least 3 years since the age of 19. In this statistics, formal supplementary education includes persons aged 22-59 years.

Non-formal education/training

Non-formal education/training is any organised learning activity that is not formal education. It includes courses, seminars and conferences (where learning is the main purpose), public lectures and private lessons not part of formal education. The definition of non-formal education/training used in the Learning Conditions Monitor does not include guided on-the-job training.

Both formal education and non-formal education/training are institutionalised forms of learning. This entails that there is an organisation providing structured arrangements (which must include something similar to a student-teacher-relationship) especially designed for education and learning.

Informal learning

Informal learning is not institutionalised learning. Thus, it is less organised and less structured than formal education and non-formal education/training, often undertaken by the individual on his/her own. It may include watching TV or reading a book with the intention to learn, intentional learning from colleagues or family members, guided tours in a museum etc. The importance of the intention to learn when undertaking an activity separates informal learning from random learning.

Learning-intensive work

Learning-intensive work refers to employment that requiers updating of skills and acquiring of new ones, with good possibilities to develop new skills during the daily work.

For discussions and examples used to clarify the differences between formal, non-formal and informal learning, see Eurostats Classification of Learning activities - Manual.

The industrial classification of economic activities is in accordance with the Standard industrial Classification (SN2007). The standard is based on the EU standard (NACE rev. 2).

Occupation is coded in accordance with the Standard classification of occupations, based on International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO-08).

Educational attainment level is primarily based on information from register information in the National Education Database according to theclassification of eudcation (NUS2000). In cases where the respondent lacks register information, the respondent is asked. The definitions of the different educational levels were revised in 2006.

Name: Lifelong learning
Topic: Education

Division for Education and Culture Statistics

Figures are presented at national level and at the county level.

The Learning Conditions Monitor (LCM) is a bi-annual ad hoc module to Statistic Norway’s Labour Force Survey (LFS). The reference-period for this survey is the last 12 months prior to the interview. The interviews are conducted throughout the whole year. Up until 2021 LCM was conducted every year, with the interviews being done only in the first quarter of the year. From 2022 and onwards the module is conducted bi-annually in even numbered years.

Collected and revised data are stored securely by Statistics Norway in compliance with applicable legislation on data processing.

Statistics Norway can grant access to the source data (de-identified or anonymised microdata) on which the statistics are based, for researchers and public authorities for the purposes of preparing statistical results and analyses. Access can be granted upon application and subject to conditions. Refer to the details about this at Access to data from Statistics Norway.

The main purpose of the LFS is to provide data on employment and unemployment, and data on the labour force participation in different sections of the population. The Norwegian LFS started in 1972. For information about the history of the survey, and about breaks in the time-series, please cf. Labour Force Survey 2015.

The Learning Conditions Monitor has provided valuable information on adult learning. The LCM is developed by the Fafo Institute for Labour and Social Research and financed by the Ministry of Education and Research. In 2015, Skills Norway became responsible for the LCM. The Directorate of higher education and competence took over the responsibility in 2021. The LCM has been conducted as an annual ad hoc module to the LFS from 2003-2006, and from 2008. The number of respondents varies from year to year, and it is normally between 15 000 to 20 000. From 2022 the LCM is conducted every other year in even numbered years. For more information about the LCM, visit www.fafo.no and www.hkdir.no.

By providing the relevant authorities and other users with information about the scope, form, content, and financing of adult learning, as well as the motivation and obstacles for education and training, the LCM contributes to the knowledge base for policy development.

Key users in Norway include the Directorate of higher education and competence, the Ministry of Education and Research. The Ministry of Labour and inclusion as well as some other Ministries, trade unions, research institutions, international organisations etc.

No external users have access to statistics before they are released at 8 a.m. on ssb.no after at least three months’ advance notice in the release calendar. This is one of the most important principles in Statistics Norway for ensuring the equal treatment of users.

This statistic is a part of the statistics of adult education and other tuition in Norway. For international comparisons, se the Adult Education Survey.

The statistics are developed, produced and disseminated pursuant to Act no. 32 of 21 June 2019 relating to official statistics and Statistics Norway (the Statistics Act).

The statistics are part of the national programme for official statistics, topic Education, sub-topic Adult education.

Council regulation 2019/1700. Commission Regulation 2019/2240 and 2019/2241. The goal of the regulation is to establish a common framework for european social statistics.

The Labour Force Survey covers the whole population of Norway. The LFS has the most detailed information on the population aged 15-74. The Learning Conditions Monitor presents statistics for the age group 15 to 66 years.

The main source for the LFS is quarterly, representative sample surveys based on interview by telephone. 21 000 inhabitants in all municipalities are randomly selected each quarter. One respondent participates a total of 8 times, in 8 consecutive quarters.

A sample of LFS respondents are asked to answer the questions in the LCM. LCM includes persons aged 15-66 years. From 2021 and onwards, the LCM is conducted throughout the whole year, in every quarter. The reference period for the respondents is the last 12 months.

Data collection: Interviews in the LFS are conducted by telephone. Information from previous interviews are used while asking about any changes in the situation, instead of the same, comprehensive data collection every time. Demographic data are collected from the Central Population Register, and data on education are based on a register of individual data collected by Statistics Norway from the educational institutions.

Editing is defined here as checking, examining and amending data.

Estimation: Person is the unit for analysis. The accurate number of persons in the population being represented by one person in the sample, the inflation factor, varies, with 170 on an average for quarterly figures. From 2018, estimations are done by a (multiple) calibration model.

For detailed information about the estimation method launched in 2018, see Documents 2018/16.

Interviewers and everyone who works at Statistics Norway have a duty of confidentiality. Statistics Norway has its own data protection officer.

Statistics Norway does not publish figures where there is a risk of identifying individual data about persons or households [enter the correct unit here, where applicable].

The ‘[suppression, rounding up/down, perturbation]¹’ method is used in these statistics to ensure this.

More information can be found on Statistics Norway’s website under Methods in official statistics, in the ‘Confidentiality’ section.

As a consequence of the european regulation of social statistics (Council Regulation 2019/1700, Commission Regulation 2019/2240 and 2019/2241) there have been changes to the LFS and LCM. Thus, there is a break in the time series numbers from 2021 and onwards. The regulation has affected the interview period and the design of the questionnare. The contents of the survey is largely the same.

In all surveys, errors may occur in connection with both the collection and the processing of data.

Coverage error in sample surveys happen if the sampling frame does not correspond to the target population. This can lead both to undercoverage and overcoverage. We sample a predetermined number of persons from the population register to the LFS each quarter. The sampling takes place two weeks before the start of the quarter.

Overcoverage is not likely to be a problem, because the target population of the LFS is persons who live in private households in Norway and the sample frame only contains persons who live in Norway. It can however happen, for instance when persons have moved from Norway without reporting it to the population register. Since there is a time lag of a few weeks between the sampling and the interview it is also possible to have some cases each quarter where the respondent has moved from Norway, moved from a private to a collective household, or died, before the interview. Such cases would in most instances be noted by the interviewers, and the interview would just be registered as non-response. Persons who have completed an interview but who are no longer in the population register at the end of the quarter will not be assigned a weight in the LFS.

Undercoverage, the situation where one should have been sampled for the LFS but wasn't, is not a large problem either, but it is nevertheless larger than the overcoverage. The population register is updated continously and has a good overview of immigration. The time lag between sampling and the interview means that a few immigrants are not included, but this is not a large problem. The main issue here is that the LFS has eight waves over two years. So if large and homogenous groups immigrate over a short time span they will not be captured by the LFS, as it takes two years to rotate inn a full new sample.

Measurement and processing errors

Measurement errors happen because of the data collection method. In a survey of persons, as the LFS, this will typically be because of unclear questions. The result will be that the respondent gave the wrong answer because they misunderstood what we meant.

The questionnaire is based on the recommendations from Eurostat, which again are based on thousands of hours of testing and analysis from a large range of statistics offices in Europe. Additionally, the Norwegian questionnaire has been tested extensively. We are therefore reasonably sure that the measurement errors are small. The LFS also uses large amounts of register data, as for instance from the A-scheme. These data sets are in constant use by Statistics Norway, the Tax Administration, and the Work and Welfare Administration, are under constant surveilance and analysis. If there are errors they are spotted and fixed fast.

Processing errors are errors which appear after the data collection, that is, they are created by the post processing of data in Statistics Norway. There could be errors in merging one file with another, or in the computer coding. Both Statistics Norway and Eurostat keep a close eye on the data quality and check the reasons for unexpected results or invalid combinations of outcomes.

Nonresponse errors happen when respondents refuse to answer. There are two types of non-response error: item non-response when the respondent has refused to participate at all, and item non-response when the respondent has refused to answer to some of the questions.

The size of the unit non-response has varied since the start of the LCM. In 2022, the response rate was around 70 per cent. The size of item non-response is small.

Sampling errors are a consequence of the results coming from a sample of persons and not the whole population. The sampling error is therefore the expected deviation of the result from a sample survey from what we would have gotten if the entire population was interviewed.

From 2019, estimates based on less than 5 000 weighted observations are not presented. Estimates based on weighted observations between 5 000 and 17 000 are regarded as uncertain estimates.

A revision is a planned change to figures that have already been published, for example when releasing final figures as a follow-up to published preliminary figures. See also Statistics Norway’s principles for revisions.

Revisions in previously published seasonally adjusted figures can take place when new observations (or revised previous observations) are included in the basis of calculation. The scope of the revision is usually greatest in the most relevant part (last 1–2 years) of seasonally adjusted time series. A corresponding revision in trends is also typical, particularly at the end of the time series. The extent of the revision of trends and seasonally adjusted figures is partly determined by the revision policy, see Section 4 of the European Statistical System (ESS) Guidelines on Seasonal Adjustment on the Eurostat website. For more information on the revision of seasonally adjusted figures, see the ‘About seasonal adjustment’ section in the relevant statistics.