Parents' and Non-parents' in PIAAC: An international phenomenon to think about

Based on the OECD’s PIAAC database (Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies), differences regarding job-related skills of adults are evaluated regarding the variable having children or not.

An analysis regarding the PIAAC key competencies Literacy, Numeracy, and (IT-related) Problem-Solving revealed marked differences regarding parenthood, which often surpassed gender differences by far, whereby parents, in particular mothers, achieved smaller scores in almost every participating country (out of 33) than the comparison group without children. 

Multivariate consideration could explain parts of these differences via sociodemographic variables and the amount of time invested in skill-related activities; however, significant parenthood effects remained in 17 participating countries after controlling for all these variables.

Parental burden seems to influence certain job-related skills in a negative way. If so, then the Covid-19 crisis is expected to aggravate this effect.

Presenter

Dr Ivo Ponocny is a full professor in the Department for Sustainability, Governance, and Methods at MODUL University Vienna. He started his career at the Institute for Psychology of the University of Vienna where he developed goodness-of-fit tests for the Rasch model, for which he was awarded the Gustav A. Lienert prize of the German Psychological Society. He holds a PhD and an MSc in Psychology and an MSc in Mathematics and has a habilitation in Psychological Methodology. After an employment at Statistics Austria where he was head of the unit “Social Statistics and Education” and later “Science, Technology, and Education” he joined MODUL University Vienna in September 2007.

Venue and RSVP

If you would like to attend online or in person, please RSVP to diane.garnham@curtin.edu.au