While many countries have made advancements towards narrowing gender gaps in educational and employment outcomes, gender inequities persist in areas such as income and employment in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. Another area where gender differences are still apparent is in numeracy skills, which are crucial to the success of adults in the workforce and are highly related to employment outcomes (OECD 2016, OECD 2013). 

Past reports using data from the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) have looked at the overall skills differences between men and women. In most countries, there was not a large gender gap, if any, in the literacy skills of men and women. However, in a large majority of countries, a gender gap in numeracy skills existed, with men outperforming women (OECD 2016, OECD 2013).

This paper takes a more in depth look at these gender gaps in numeracy in 30 PIAAC-participating countries, examining whether these skill differences between men and women exist across different demographics and employment characteristics. It presents these results from an international perspective, looking at which countries have comparatively smaller or larger numeracy skills gap by gender, and determining among which demographic and employment-related groups these differences between men and women are largest.

PIAAC is an international study that measures adult skills and provides a detailed source of nationally representative and internationally comparable data. PIAAC’s background survey provides detailed information background and demographic factors, such as educational attainment, workplace experiences and skills, socio-economic background, and skill use; and its assessment provides information on adults’ cognitive skills (literacy, numeracy, and digital problem solving). Data from the 2012 and 2014 administrations of PIAAC are used in this study. This study looks at the full PIAAC population of adults age 16 to 65. Numeracy scores, which are reported on a scale from 0 to 500, are used in relation to data from the background survey. The international average presented here is based on the 30 countries included in the International Data Explorer (IDE) released by the U.S. National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The findings reported are statistically significant at the p < .05 level. This paper examines how the gender gap in numeracy performance, i.e. the difference between the average numeracy scale score of men and the average score of women, compares across PIAAC-participating countries. It further examines whether the gender gap in numeracy exists across various demographic and employment groups among these countries, looking both at the overall international average and at the patterns in individual countries. The demographics looked at include age, educational attainment, native-born status, and employment-related characteristics such as numeracy skill use at work, income, occupation, and industry.

Across countries, men outperformed women on the numeracy scale. While the gender difference was significant in most countries, the size of the gender skills gap varies, with larger differences in Turkey and Chile and non-significant differences in Lithuania, Poland, the Slovak Republic. The size of the gender gap in numeracy performance varies by socio-demographic and employment characteristics across these countries. Men outperformed women across all age groups, but the difference was smaller among younger age groups compared to older groups. Similarly, men outperformed women at every education level, but the performance gap was somewhat smaller among those with lower education levels compared to those with higher education levels. By employment status, the gender gap in numeracy was largest among those out of the labor force and smallest among unemployed adults. Men outperformed women in most industries and occupations although there was some variation, for example, those in professional occupations showed the largest gender differences. Among those who used their numeracy skills less frequently at work, there was not a significant gender gap in numeracy, while the largest gap was seen among those who use numeracy skills most frequently. By income, men did not consistently outperform women within each earnings percentile. In conclusion, the smaller gender gap in numeracy found among younger adults, likely related to the reduction of the gender gap in education, shows that progress is being made. However, the persistence of this skills gap among most demographic and employment-related groups indicates that more needs to be done working towards gender equity. Understanding the distribution of numeracy skills by gender among these socio-demographic and work-related characteristics, and specific profiles in each country, will help to create targeted policies to reduce the persistent gender gap in numeracy outcomes.

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). (2013). OECD Skills Outlook 2013: First Results From the Survey of Adult Skills. OECD Publishing. http://skills.oecd.org/documents/OECD_Skills_Outlook_2013.pdf. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). (2016). Skills Matter: Further Results from the Survey of Adult Skills. OECD Publishing. https://www.oecd.org/skills/piaac/Skills_Matter_Further_Results_from_the_Survey_of_Adult_Skills.pdf.