Numeracy and employment

Education + Training Numeracy and employment Samantha Parsons, John Bynner,

Article information: To cite this document: Samantha Parsons, John Bynner, (1997) "Numeracy and employment", Education + Training, Vol. 39 Issue: 2, pp.43-51, https://doi.org/10.1108/00400919710164125 Permanent link to this document: https://doi.org/10.1108/00400919710164125 Downloaded on: 15 November 2017, At: 02:32 (PT) References: this document contains references to 9 other documents. To copy this document: [email protected] The fulltext of this document has been downloaded 1215 times since 2006*

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Users who downloaded this article also downloaded: (2012),"The role of numeracy skills in graduate employability", Education + Training, Vol. 54 Iss 5 pp. 419-434 https://doi.org/10.1108/00400911211244704 (1999),"Lack of employment: the threat to numeracy", Education + Training, Vol. 41 Iss 8 pp. 359-366 https://doi.org/10.1108/00400919910298620

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Introduction

Numeracy and employment

Literacy is a basic skill which few people in a modern industrial society can afford to be without. The importance of numeracy is more questionable. Although most people acquire basic numeracy skills at school, and use them in their daily lives in shops and other places where computation, measurement or estimation is required, numeracy is not considered a prerequisite for many types of job. Recent evidence from surveys of employers carried out for the Basic Skills Agency suggests that this situation may be changing more rapidly than is generally realized. In a study carried out by the Institute for Manpower Studies, it was concluded that only one in eight jobs did not require any numeracy skills at all and only one in four had minimal numeracy requirements, i.e. skills at the Basic Skills Agency “Foundation level”[1]. Excluding management and professional occupations, two types of occupation – selling and clerical/secretarial jobs – which women enter in larger numbers than men, were those most likely to require numeracy skills. Yet we know from research on adults’ basic skills that women are generally less proficient at numeracy than men, and are less at home with numbers when at school[2,3]. Although there is some evidence that at school the gap in numeracy skills between boys and girls may be reducing[4], if two of the main areas of employment entered by women increasingly demand numeracy skills, then the need to close the numeracy gender gap takes on added importance. However, the problem is not restricted to women. The importance of basic skills generally in employment has been rising, with half of employers saying that they are more important than five years ago[5]. Moreover, one in four reported that among job applicants, basic skills were just adequate or worse. Much of employers’ concern is with poor literacy, but poor numeracy is also worrying many. There is increasing demand for numeracy skills, especially in selling jobs and in semi-skilled manual jobs. Besides jobs requiring specific computational and measurement skills in the building trades, engineering and sales, a wide range of occupations, especially in offices, depend increasingly on the use of information technology, where some basic understanding

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Samantha Parsons and John Bynner

The authors Samantha Parsons is Research Officer and John Bynner is Professor of Social Statistics and Director of the Social Statistics Research Unit, City University, London, UK. Abstract Uses National Child Development Study (NCDS) data to examine the employment experiences of men and women assessed with poor numeracy compared with those with good numeracy skills at age 37. To uncover the extent of negative effects of having poor numeracy skills, the sample is restricted to those whose poor or good numeracy was accompanied by good literacy skills. As a further control, much of the analysis is also restricted to those who had left full-time education at age 16. Maps the proportions in full-time employment between ages 17 to 37 and demonstrates the very different labour market experiences of the two skills groups in the areas of occupation, training, promotion and income. Concludes that poor numeracy reduces employment opportunities and progress in jobs.

Education + Training Volume 39 · Number 2 · 1997 · pp. 43–51 © MCB University Press · ISSN 0040-0912

This paper is based on research funded by the Basic Skills Agency.

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Numeracy and employment

Education + Training

Samantha Parsons and John Bynner

Volume 39 · Number 2 · 1997 · 43–51

of the logic of IT applications can increase efficiency. Demands for more financial accountability at all levels of employment also confront increasing numbers of employees with the need for competence in accounting and computational skills. The question arises from these employment trends as to what impact they are having on the individual worker. We need to know to what extent numeracy difficulties play a part in employment problems.

each of the numeracy and literacy tasks is shown respectively in Tables I and II.) A score of 1 was assigned to correct answers and the individual scores aggregated to produce for each cohort member an overall numeracy and literacy score. The aggregate scores were then grouped into a fourfold classification of “very low”, “low”, “average” and “good” for both numeracy and literacy abilities. In the order of four times as many cohort members were in the very low numeracy category compared with the very low literacy category: 27 per cent versus 7 per cent for women, and 19 per cent versus 5 per cent for men. The aim of the analysis was to see to what extent numeracy problems were subsumed under literacy problems or constituted a significant problem in their own right. For this purpose we needed to identify people who had difficulties only with the numeracy tasks, i.e. they had very low numeracy skills combined with average or good literacy skills. By comparing the employment experiences of this group of cohort members with the majority who achieved average or good scores in both the literacy and numeracy assessments, we were able to see clearly what effects poor numeracy skills had on participation and experiences in the labour market. Of cohort members, 81 per cent were included in these two combined literacy-numeracy skills groups: 10.6 per cent (n = 180) with very low numeracy and average/ good literacy skills (classified as “poor”), 70.5 per cent (n = 1,200) with average/good literacy and average/good numeracy skills (classified as “good”). A slightly higher proportion of women had very low numeracy and average/ good literacy skills in comparison with men (11.6 per cent women, 9.4 per cent men).

The data To answer these questions, we draw on data collected from adults age 37 in the National Child Development Study (NCDS). This large-scale longitudinal study has involved following up a sample of people born in a single week in 1958 through to adult life. Information was collected from the whole sample of cohort members at birth and at various later age points, using a variety of sources including interviews with parents, teachers and medical professionals together with educational tests and self-completion questionnaires administered to cohort members. At age 23 and 33 the cohort members were interviewed individually about their employment, family life and health. At age 37, a 10 per cent sample (n = 1,714) was interviewed and tested for functional literacy and numeracy skills. These skills are defined by the Basic Skills Agency as: “the ability to read, write and speak in English and use mathematics at a level necessary to function and progress at work and in society in general”[6]. The assessments Each of the assessment exercises comprised a collection of tasks which cohort members were likely to come across in their everyday lives, such as calculating change in a shop, paying a restaurant bill, extracting information from a newspaper article. The tasks were designed to tap skills at each of the different levels corresponding to the BSA standards: Foundation, Level 1 and Level 2. Broadly the order of difficulty of the tasks corresponded to the BSA levels. NCDS members had eight literacy and nine numeracy tasks to tackle. The majority of tasks had two or three sub-questions. They were administered to respondents at the end of a 45-minute interview and together they took an average of about half-an-hour to complete. There were large male-female differences for some of the tasks, particularly those involving measurement. (The percentage who failed

Is numeracy a problem? We start our examination of the effects of numeracy problems on labour market participation by asking: do people with poor numeracy skills have difficulties in entering and holding on to employment and how does it affect their prospects when in jobs? Employment status Table III shows the percentage of men and women who were in full-time or part-time employment, unemployed, or “other”. For women, those who had taken on full-time “home-care” responsibilities is detailed additionally. Although the vast majority of men 44

Numeracy and employment

Education + Training

Samantha Parsons and John Bynner

Volume 39 · Number 2 · 1997 · 43–51

Table I Percentage of men and women who answered literacy questions incorrectly

Questions

Men Women Very low (%) All (%) Very low (%) All (%)

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Foundation level 1 A newspaper advert for a concert Where was the concert being held? Who will be playing the concert? 2 A letter was given to read What does Jo want Pat to do for her? Why does she ask Pat to do shopping? What time does Jo expect to return? 3 Instructions for replacing a battery Where is the battery compartment found? Which of the old batteries should be removed first? Which of the three batteries should be inserted first? Level 1 1 Reading a newspaper extract about a cat (Whisky) What was Whisky’s condition? How did she survive without food? Where is Whisky now? 2 Consulting Yellow Pages From the index pages, which page are details of plumbers on? What is the telephone number of a plumber in Chiswick? Level 2 1 Reading a conservation article How many types of grass are there in the world? Names of three types of cereal? Which cereal grows well in poor, sandy soil? How is flour made from wheat? 2 Reading information about a town In which year during 1965-1982 was the most new factory space made available? What percentage of people work in the town centre? How do we know that the pedestrian walkways are successful? Level 3 1 “True” or “false” to an article on households and families Between 1971-1991, the number of divorces more than trebled Since 1971 there was a decrease in people who live alone In 1991, over 17 per cent of families with children were headed by a lone mother were in full-time employment (83 per cent of men with poor skills; 92 per cent with good skills), unemployment was almost three times as likely for men with poor numeracy skills – 8 per cent compared to 3 per cent of men with good skills. A different picture was apparent for

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