Associated with having a high impact on economic growth, securing social cohesion and employability, lifelong learning and equal access to it has become one of the major issues within EU policies (e.g. EC 2009). However, adult education and training (AET) is highly selective. Even though participation rates and the extent of inequality in access to AET differ substantially between countries, the familiar pattern of advantaged groups (employed, high-skilled, young age groups) participating in AET is evident everywhere (Boateng 2009; Rubenson/Desjardins 2009; Roosmaa/Saar 2010).

Overall, employers are the primary sources supporting AET. In Europe, at least 50 % of employed participants in AET are sponsored fully or partly by employers (Brunello et al. 2007). Analyses on determinants of participation controlling for ‘employer-sponsored-training’ in contrast to ’all-training’ and ’non-sponsored-training’, reveal substantial differences regarding participation patterns: e.g. women are more likely than men to participate in all training but less to participate in employer-sponsored-training. Similarly, fixed-term and part-time-work employees are not in general less likely to participate in AET, but to participate in employer-sponsored-training (Brunello et al. 2007). National analyses for Germany focusing on segment specific participation structures reveal similar results. In addition to previous studies, a co-financed form of vocational AET in terms of shared investment of employers and employees is identified. This distinctive differentiation of purely company-sponsored, self-financed and co-financed vocational AET shows that 32 % is company-sponsored AET, but co-financed AET is also pronounced with 10 %. Only 4 % is self-financed AET (Kaufmann/Widany 2013). The substantial differences of participation determinants within the segments of company-sponsored, self-financed and co-financed vocational AET emphasize that participation is conditional to opportunity structures: For example, institutional infrastructure in companies like a HR management promotes participation in company-financed AET and decreases the probability for self-financed AET. Further, gender is relevant, women show higher probabilities to participate in self- and co-financed AET than men (ibid.).

Analyses for selected EU-countries reveal that co-financed AET is of quantitative relevance in most states. Spain shows the highest amount of co-financed AET whereas Sweden shows the highest amount of company-sponsored and hardly self-financed AET. However, in all investigated countries the duration of vocational AET is lowest for company-sponsored and highest for self-financed AET (Kaufmann in preparation). But, are different reasons for and outcomes of AET-participation reflected by those investment patterns? And what role do country-specific arrangements play, like sectoral training funds (CEDEFOP 2008)? In fact, Brunello et al. (2007) find stronger effects attributed to country level on AET-participation than determinants like education, age, occupation and firm-size.

The ‘varieties of capitalism’ approach (Hall/Soskice 2001; Estevez-Abe et al. 2001) and the approach of ‘welfare state regimes’ (Esping-Andersen 1990), both arguing in different ways for country specific ‘institutional packages’ influencing AET participation, have been referred to frequently for explaining cross-country specific patterns of AET (Roosmaa/Saar 2012; Rubenson/Desjardins 2009). Overall, the approaches suggest a rather complex interplay of macro level characteristics which are expected to influence both (objective) opportunity structures (‘institutional packages’ including interrelations of skill formation systems and skill demand in different economic structures) as well as individually perceived opportunity structures resp. demand for participating in AET (Saar et al. 2013). These assumptions correspond to recently developed models, focusing on the match of demand and supply factors for explaining AET participation (e.g. Boeren et al. 2010).

Referring to these results and theoretical assumptions of interrelated supply and demand factors, AET participation distinguished by investment structures is analysed in international comparison. Thereby, differences regarding reasons for and outcomes of AET depending on the form of finance are focused, controlling for the influence of country specific ‘institutional packages’.

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