Adult education and training statistics: concepts, data and sources.
Main statistics and indicators on adult learning refer to participation of persons aged 25 64 years in formal and non formal education and training. Information is derived from survey data, nowadays privileging a reference period of 12 months prior to the interview. This is considered to provide a more appropriate measure of participation in adult learning than indicators based on participation in education and training in the last 4 weeks used for monitoring earlier in the 2002 2010 and 2010 2020 policy cycles.
Adult participation in education and training is measured in the EU by two main surveys: the European Labour Force Survey (LFS) and the Adult Education Survey (AES). LFS traditionally measured participation in the previous 4 weeks to the interview and only since 2022 has started to also collect biennial data on participation in the last 12 months. Before that, AES was the only source providing data for the more comprehensive ‘12 months prior to the survey’ approach, but its periodicity is of once every six years. Several methodological differences exist between both surveys. They are summarised in a previous Cedefop online article and more extensively described in a 2024 Eurostat information note. The most important one to consider for the purposes of this article is that the AES covers guided on the job training (GOJT) as a key part of non formal learning, while the LFS does not. This accounts for an important difference in the results of both surveys, but even when GOJT is analytically excluded from the production of AES estimates, a significant difference persists due to further methodological differences (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Adults with a learning experience in the last 12 months, LFS and AES data (%). EU27, 2016, 2022 and 2024.
Source:;Eurostat, LFS (trng_lfs_17,access date: 12/03/2026) and AES (trng_aes_100, access date: 12/03/2026) (data excluding guided on the job training supplied at Cedefop request).
AES with the inclusion of guided on the job training is considered by Eurostat as the best measure of participation in adult learning in the last 12 months, but EU level targets were defined using baseline levels derived from the AES data excluding guided on the job training. The biennial data from the LFS on participation in the last 12 months also exclude it and can provide additional indication on trends since 2022, but given their recent introduction and the on going quality analysis, this data should be interpreted with more caution.
Given this policy and technical context, Cedefop now gives priority to AES data (excl. GOJT) in the European VET policy dashboard and uses a multi source, multi indicator approach in the Key indicators on VET. In line with this approach, this article chooses to check the status of the policy targets with AES 2022 (excl. GOJT) data when available. At the same time, to enrich the analysis, some LFS data as well as AES data including GOJT are also used.
Participation in adult education and training: rates and trends.
Figure 2 shows European and country‑level percentages of adults participating in education and training in the last 12 months in 2016 and 2022. It uses AES data, available every 6 years, with estimates derived excluding guided on‑the‑job training, the same type of data used for getting baselines and defining main targets for the current policy cycle.
Figure 2. Adults with a learning experience in the last 12 months, AES data excl. GOJT (%). EU27 and countries, 2016 and 2022.
Source: Eurostat, AES (data excluding guided on the job training supplied at Cedefop request). 2022 data for FR, IT and RO are accompanied by a 'b' flag: break in time series, and their values cannot be compared over time with previous ones. 2022 data for FR is also accompanied by a 'p' flag: provisional.
Using this metric, the adult participation rate in education and training for the EU27 in 2022 was 39.5%. Despite the 2.1 percentage points increase since 2016, this is still 7.5% below the 2025 target (47%). This means that the annual increase derived from the six years between 2016 and 2022 (+0.35 percentage points per year) is not enough to meet the targets when applying a simple linear interpolation into the target years, which results in an expected participation rate of 40.6% in 2025 and of 42.3% in 2030. Here and in following interpolations, this is done by first subtracting the 2016 value to the 2022 value and dividing the result by the number of years between both (six years). Then, this annual percentage points increase is applied to the last value as many times as the years between the year it was taken and the target year.
Great variability exists at country level. There are some countries like Sweden or Hungary that have already accomplished and even surpassed the European objectives for 2030. On the other hand, there are some other countries, such as Bulgaria and Greece, that have very low rates and have even experienced decreases as compared to 2016.
A closer inspection at adult participation in education and training in the last years can be achieved by turning now to the LFS data using a ‘12 months prior to the interview’ reference period. In Figure 3, 2022 and 2024 data from this source are displayed.
Figure 3. Adults with a learning experience in the last 12 months, LFS data (%). EU27 and countries, 2022 and 2024.
Source: Eurostat, LFS (trng_lfs_17, access date: 12/03/2026). 2024 data for HU. BE, IE, DE and EL are accompanied by a 'b' flag: break in time series, and their values cannot be compared over time with previous ones. 2024 data for MT is accompanied by a 'u' flag: low reliability.
Different methodologies between AES and LFS account for different levels in the participation rates measured by both surveys. The EU average tends to be lower in the latter, which accounts for participation rates of 25.1% in 2022 and 28.5% in 2024 (meaning a 14.4% difference for 2022 EU27 data). 2024 LFS data confirm the persistence of considerable cross country differences and indicate a modest average upwards trend in the last years for the EU as a whole. For the EU average, between 2022 and 2024 it can be estimated an absolute increase of 3.4 percentage points (as the difference between the 2024 and 2022 values). Among countries for which reliable comparisons can be carried out over time, most of the changes are also positive.
For a broader vision of trends in adult participation in education and training over the years, it is also possible to rely on the LFS ‘4 weeks prior to the interview’ variable. Although it is now considered as a less precise indicator, it can still provide some information regarding progress over a longer period.
Figure 4. Adults with a learning experience in the last 4 weeks, LFS data (%). EU27, 2015 2024.
Source: Eurostat, LFS (trng_lfse_01, access date: 12/03/2026). 2021 data for EU27 is accompanied by a 'b' flag: break in time series, and its value cannot be compared over time with previous ones.
In the previous policy cycle, this indicator was used to monitor progress towards a target of 15% of adults participating in education and training in the last 4 weeks by 2020 agreed under the European agenda for adult learning. Figure 4 shows that, following years of minor improvements and a drop in 2020 (most probably due to COVID 19 pandemic effects), EU average values for this indicator are now increasing at a more sustained pace towards the 15%. By 2024, the participation rate documented by this approach for the EU27 was of 13.5%. Caution is advised when comparing the pre- and post- 2021 data due to a break in time series derived mainly from the introduction of a new IESS Framework Regulation, on which LFS is based on.
Status of the new targets: low qualified and unemployed adults.
The European Skills Agenda introduced two new targets regarding adult education and training with the aims to reach, by 2025, 30% of low qualified adults participating in adult education and training during the last 12 months and 20% of unemployed adults doing so during the last 4 weeks.
As in the previous section, Figure 5 below prioritizes and puts in focus 2016 and 2022 AES data excl. GOJT.
Figure 5. Low qualified adults with a learning experience in the last 12 months, AES data excl. GOJT (%). EU27 and countries, 2016 and 2022.
Source: Eurostat, AES (data excluding guided on‑the‑job training supplied at Cedefop request). 2022 data for FR, IT and RO are accompanied by a 'b' flag: break in time series, and their values cannot be compared over time with previous ones. 2016 data for CZ, EL and HR and 2022 data for DK, SK, LV, SI, CZ, PL and EL are accompanied by a 'u' flag: low reliability. 2016 data for BG, LT, SK and RO and 2022 data for BG, LT and HR are not available.
Compared with the already discussed participation rates for the whole EU27’s adult population, Figure 5 shows lower values for the group of low qualified adults (with at most a qualification at ISCED levels 0 2). Using AES data excluding guided on the job training for 2022, it is observed that while 39.5% of the whole adult population claimed to have participated in the last 12 months only 18.4% of low qualified adults did so. The 2025 target is still 11.6 percentage points away from being reached, and the increase accomplished since the previous round of AES six years before is minimal (+0.5 percentage points). At this rate, the simple linear interpolation returns a 18.7% participation rate for low qualified adults in 2025, still 11.4 percentage points below the target.
As with participation rates for the whole adult population, great country-level variability persists in participation rates among low-qualified adults. Country specific data tend however to be more affected by low reliability and breaks in time series. For a closer inspection of more recent progress, results from LFS can be considered.
Figure 6. Low qualified adults with a learning experience in the last 12 months, LFS data (%). EU27 and countries, 2022 and 2024.
Source: Eurostat, LFS (trng_lfs_18, access date: 12/03/2026). 2024 data for HU. BE, IE, DE and EL are accompanied by a 'b' flag: break in time series, and their values cannot be compared over time with previous ones. 2016 data for FI, SI and HR and 2022 data for FI, MT and HR are accompanied by a 'u' flag: low reliability. 2022 data for LV and BG and 2024 data for BG are not available.
Figure 6 confirms that LFS based EU estimates tend to be lower than those from AES (even when guided on the job training is excluded from the latter), reflecting other methodological differences: in 2022, the EU27 participation rate for low qualified adults was at 18.4% in AES and 11.2% in LFS. Figure 6 is nonetheless helpful in that it shows progress in the very last years.
Most countries have recently experienced increases in the participation rates of low qualified adults. The average EU27 value has gone up to 12.7% in 2024, corresponding to an increase of 1.5 percentage points since 2022.
When monitoring the unemployed adults’ participation in education and training, the reference period of ‘4 weeks prior to the interview’ is considered more in line with the labour market concept of unemployment status. LFS is consequently the privileged reference source to consider.
Figure 7. Unemployed adults with a learning experience in the last 4 weeks, LFS data (%). EU27 and countries, 2022 and 2024.
Source: Eurostat, LFS (trng_lfse_02, access date: 12/03/2026). 2024 data for IE, BE, DE and EL are accompanied by a 'b' flag: break in time series, and their values cannot be compared over time with previous ones. 2022 and 2024 data for ES and FR are accompanied by a 'd' flag: definition differs. 2022 data for LU and HR and 2024 data for MT, HR and RO are accompanied by a 'u' flag: low reliability. 2022 data for RO, BG and SK and 2024 data for BG and SK are not available
Figure 7 shows 2022 and 2024 participation rates of unemployed adults in the EU27 and at country level. The participation rate for EU27’s unemployed adults was of 13.3% in 2022 and of 15.3% in 2024, accounting for a 2 percentage points increase in two years.
Even though the 2025 EU target is unlikely to be met at the current pace, these results indicate that, following years of modest improvements, EU average values for this indicator are increasing at a more sustained pace and show better progress. This is clear when looking at the longer period trend for both low qualified and unemployed adults as shown in Figure 8.
Figure 8. Recent (last 4 weeks) adult learning participation among low qualified and unemployed adults, LFS data (%). EU27, 2015 2024.
Source: Eurostat, LFS (trng_lfse_03, access date: 12/03/2026 & trng_lfse_02, access date: 12/03/2026). 2021 data for EU27 are accompanied by a 'b' flag: break in time series, and their values cannot be compared over time with previous ones.
Here, the most promising evolution is depicted in the participation rates of unemployed adults. Although there is an important break in the time series in 2021, there is still a visible change of pace in the latest rate increases (with a 2.6 percentage points increase from 2021 to 2024). Recent increases in participation rates of low qualified adults have been overall smaller, with a difference of +1.2 percentage points between 2021 and 2024.
LFS data show that, regardless of the possible overlaps of both sub-groups of the adult population in EU27, unemployed adults were in 2024 almost three times more likely to participate in education and training in the 4 weeks prior to the survey than low qualified adults (with participation rates of 15.3% and 5.5% respectively).
Other important aspects of participation rates.
These last findings point to the importance of a deeper understanding of the dynamics involved in the participation of adults in education and training. To this end, it is worth looking into participation rates for other relevant sub groups of adults, even when no target is set for them. This section is dedicated to the analysis of different aspects that can account for crucial differences in the way participation rates vary among the population. This can not only point at pertinent categories for the understanding of the topic of interest but suggest leverages for a more informed tackling of the challenges ahead.
Since the monitoring of targets is not the main goal now, it is possible to use AES including GOJT data as the main reference. This allows to take advantage of the full potential of the survey. Guided on the job training is an essential part of adult education and training and including it can result in a more precise picture which might be useful for policy design and implementation.
This section turns the attention to participation rates in the AES including GOJT data when disaggregated by sex, age, educational attainment, labour status, occupation and degree of urbanisation of the area of usual residence of the respondents. Apart from showing differences across socio demographic groups and checking their absolute changes between the two last AES rounds (as the difference between 2022 and 2016 values), it includes relative changes (as absolute changes divided by the value of the baseline year, 2016) as an additional point of reference using a secondary axis in the charts.
Figure 9. Participation rate in adult education and training by sex, AES data incl. GOJT (%). EU27, 2016 and 2022.
Source: Eurostat, AES (trng_aes_100, access date: 12/03/2026).
Figure 9 shows the participation rates of adults and adults by sex in 2016 and 2022, as well as their relative change percentage over those six years. As it is clear from the chart, no major differences are found in the participation between men and women based on EU27 averages estimates from the last two AES rounds. Men and women had very similar participation rates in adult education and training in 2016 (43.6% and 43.8% respectively). As compared to 2016, in 2022 participation rates went up for both genders, the increase for women being slightly larger than the one for their male counterparts (resulting in rates of 46% for men and 47.2% for women). However, the gender dimension does relate to some differences in the perceived obstacles to participation (see next section).
Figure 10. Participation rate in adult education and training by age groups, AES data incl. GOJT (%). EU27, 2016 and 2022.
Source: Eurostat, AES (trng_aes_101, access date: 12/03/2026).
Figure 10 presents the same kind of analysis with participation rates disaggregated by age. In this case, there exists a visible relation in which participation in education and training gets more uncommon among older groups. AES data show that in the six years between the last two surveys (2016 2022) every age group has experienced an increase in its participation in adult education and training, the 25-34 years old group being the one with the greatest absolute increase (+4.3 percentage points) and the 55 64 years old group the one with the greatest relative increase (+12%). Still, major differences by age persists with the 55 64 year-olds participating the least. Statistically speaking, for every adult in the 55 64 age range participating in education and training in 2022 there were almost 1.6 adults in the 25 34 age range doing the same. This leads to a concern because, as already mentioned, +55 years old workers are growing in number faster as compared to other age groups and are with a more pronounced need for adapting to new technological advances.
Figure 11. Participation rate in adult education and training by highest level of education attained, AES data incl. GOJT (%). EU27, 2016 and 2022.
Source: Eurostat, AES (trng_aes_102, access date: 12/03/2026).
The biggest differences among the analysed categories of adults can be found when grouping by highest level of educational attainment (Figure 11). Low qualified adults (i.e., adults with at most a qualification at ISCED levels 0 2 as their highest) had a participation rate of 25.1% in 2022, considerably lower than the 41.5% average for adults with a medium level of education (i.e., those with at most a qualification at ISCED levels 3 4) and the 65.7% for adults with a qualification at tertiary level (i.e., ISCED levels 5 to 8). This means that high qualified adults were, in 2022, more than twice as likely to participate in education and training than low qualified adults. However, low qualified adults were also the group which experienced the largest increase since 2016 both in absolute (+2.2 percentage points) and in relative terms (+9.6%).
In the second group (ISCED levels 3 4), which clusters adults with upper secondary and post-secondary non tertiary education, 2022 AES data allow to distinguish between those with general and vocational orientation. In 2022, in the EU27, adults with medium level vocational qualifications as their highest had a participation rate in adult education and training slightly lower than their counterparts with general education at the same ISCED level, with a negative difference of 3.4 percentage points (40.7% and 44.1% respectively).
Figure 12. Participation rate in adult education and training by main labour market status, AES data incl. GOJT (%). EU27, 2016 and 2022.
Source: Eurostat, AES (trng_aes_103, access date: 12/03/2026).
Figure 12 displays participation rates by main labour market status according to AES data including GOJT. Employed adults clearly emerge as those with higher participation rates in adult education and training. In 2022 the rates were 53.9% for the employed adults as compared to 29.2% for the unemployed and 24.4% for the inactive ones. In this case, the chances that an employed adult had participated in education and training in the 12 months prior to the interview were more than double with respect to inactive adults but not with respect to unemployed ones. Still, it could be said that every unemployed participant accounted for 1.85 employed participants. To an extent, this also relates to the importance of GOJT, which is of easier access to employed adults. Unemployed adults had a 27.8% participation rate in 2016 and experienced an increase of 1.4 percentage points towards 2022 as measured by AES data incl. GOJT. This corresponds to a 5% relative increase in six years, still below the 10.4% relative change experienced by the otherwise less participative inactive adult population.
Figure 13. Participation rate in adult education and training by occupation groups, AES data incl. GOJT (%). EU27, 2016 and 2022.
Source: Eurostat, AES (trng_aes_104, access date: 12/03/2026).
Participation rates can seem overall higher when dividing the adult population by occupation groups probably due to the absence of some adults which were part of the less participative groups of inactive and unemployed adults (the ones not previously employed that could not be classified in a specific category), but there still exist important differences to consider between groups of occupations (Figure 13). The group of managers, professionals, technicians and associate professionals had a participation rate of 68.7% in 2022 and is clearly the one that clusters the adults participating the most in education and training. Adults with such occupations were more than twice as likely to participate than adults with elementary occupations, who reached a 31.5% participation rate in the same year. Skilled manual workers and clerical support workers, service and sales working occupied a middle‑ground position between the other two groups and had participation rates of 36.7% and 48.1% respectively. Absolute and relative increases since 2016 were generally small.
Figure 14. Participation rate in adult education and training by degree of urbanisation of the area of usual residence, AES data incl. GOJT (%). EU27, 2016 and 2022.
Source: Eurostat, AES (trng_aes_105, access date: 12/03/2026).
The degree of urbanisation of the area where adults usually reside is the last dimension considered in this section. Figure 14 highlights that adults living in more urbanised areas tend to participate more than the ones living in less urbanised areas. Adults living in cities are both the ones participating more and the ones whose participation increased more in the six years between the last two AES, both in absolute and in relative terms. In 2022, rural areas had a participation rate in adult education and training of 40.5% and cities had one of 51%, which means that adults residing in cities were around 25% more likely to participate as compared to adults residing in rural areas.
Obstacles, barriers and reasons for not participating.
This last section focuses on data for a better understanding of the reasons for participating or not in education and training.
Figure 15. Adult population by participation in education and training in the last 12 months and by desire to participate/participate more, AES data incl. GOJT (%). EU27, 2022.
Source: Eurostat, AES (trng_aes_175, access date: 12/03/2026).
AES allows the clustering of the European adult population in four different groups according to their participation and desire for participation in education and training (Figure 15). Out of those, the largest group in 2022 was that of adults who did not participate and did not want to participate in education and training, accounting for a 42.4% of the whole adult population. The second largest group was made up by adults who participated and did not want to participate more in education and training (30.4%). Only 10.2% were those that did not participate but wanted to do so and 15.7% those who participated and wanted to participate more. This can be due to a selection bias by which the group of adults who participated tend to naturally include those more inclined to participate again, but it can also be pointing to the fact that getting involved in education and training, even when in short programmes, is a driving force for a greater interest in the continuation of that involvement.
On the other hand, one reason behind the prominence of adults not participating and stating that they did not want to do so could be that education and training is perceived as inherently involving certain obstacles or inconveniences. Further exploration of the data is needed here, also to understand the obstacles encountered by adults stating that they wanted to participate but still refrained from doing so.
Figure 16. Adult population not participating in education and training by main reason, AES data incl. GOJT (%). EU27 and countries, 2022.
Source: Eurostat, AES (trng_aes_195, access date: 12/03/2026). Some data points are accompanied by a ‘u’ flag: low reliability. The following categories and countries are concerned: 'Wanted but encountered difficulties which were not due to personal reasons' data for DK and SK, 'Wanted but encountered difficulties for personal reasons' data for BG, DK and SK and 'No response' data for SE, LU, FR, ES and BG. Data on every category for CZ are accompanied by a 'd' flag: definition differs. 'No response' data for EE, DE, CY, IT, MT, HU, RO, SI, HR, LV, BE, LT, DK, PL, SK and CZ are not available.
Figure 16 shows that among the adults not participating in education and training in the EU27 in 2022 the vast majority claimed that the main reason for that was that they ‘did not want’ to (79.5%). In all countries, this is the category with the highest share of answers (55% or more). On average, apart from the small percentage of no response (1.3%), adults not participating that opted for a different answer are divided between those who indicated difficulties not related to personal reasons (i.e. external factors) (11%) and those who pointed to difficulties related to personal reasons (6.8%).
Figure 17. Adult population not wanting to participate in education and training by main reason, AES data incl. GOJT (%). EU27 and countries, 2022.
Source: Eurostat AES (tng_aes_192, access date: 12/03/2026). 'Other reason' data for BG and 'No response' data for IE and DK are accompanied by a 'u' flag: low reliability. Data on every category for CZ are accompanied by a 'd' flag: definition differs. 'Personal reasons' for BG and 'No response' data for RO, MT, HR, LV, BE, CY, AT, HU, SI, IT, SK, CZ, EE, LT and BG are not available.
Figure 17 shows that the great majority of adults not wanting to participate in education and training in the EU27 indicate that they feel ‘no need’ to do so (75.9%). This perception in turn relates to the awareness of one’s needs and the ability to assess them, also with respect to individual objectives and in the wider context affecting the perspectives of adults, workers, organisations, societies and economies at large. It also relates to the experience of guidance, which is far from being widespread and universal in the EU, with considerable variability across countries, demographic and socio economic groups (Guidance for adult learning, Evidence from the 2022 AES, Cedefop forthcoming).
This is also part of a broader picture of obstacles typically framed as dispositional barriers or attitudes towards learning as part of major frameworks proposed in the scientific literature (Cross, 1981; Rubenson & Desjardins, 2009), which would be better examined: i) alongside institutional and situational barriers; ii) transversally with respect to financial, time- and information- related barriers; and iii) with reference to all non participants. The AES survey has some limitations in this sense but allows to derive some indications.
Figures 18 and 19 focus on adults wanting to participate in education and training by main reason for not participating.
Figure 18: Adult population wanting to participate in education and training but not participating by main reason, AES data incl. GOJT (%). EU27, 2022.
Source: Eurostat, AES (trng_aes_179, access date: 12/03/2026).
Although there is a great variety of obstacles preventing adults wanting to participate in education and training from doing so, in the EU as a whole, in 2022, the most common ones were time- or costs- related: schedule incompatibilities were the main obstacle for the adults not participating but wanting to (22.8%) followed by family reasons (14.4%) and costs (13.7%) (Figure 17), adding up to a combined 50.9% of the total.
Figure 19. Adult population wanting to participate in education and training but not participating by main reason, AES data incl. GOJT (%). EU27 and countries, 2022.
Source: Eurostat, AES (trng_aes_179, access date: 12/03/2026). Some data points are accompanied by a ‘u’ flag: low reliability. The following categories and countries are concerned: 'Schedule' data for DK and NL, 'Family reasons' data for BG, LT and DK, 'Costs' data for BG, SK, CZ and DK, 'No response' data for MT, IE, CZ and NL, 'Other personal reasons' data for MT, SK, HR, IE, FI and DK, 'Lack of support from employer or public services' data for MT, HU, SI, LT, HR, EE, IE, CZ and NL and 'No suitable offer for education or training' data for MT, HU, SK, LT, HR, IE and DK. Data on every category for CZ are accompanied by a 'd' flag: definition differs. Some data points are not available. The following categories and countries are concerned: ‘No response’ data for LV, BG, IT, SI, AT, SK and EL, ‘Other personal reasons’ data for HU, BG, EL and DK, ‘Lack of support from employer or public services’ data for LV, BG, SK and EL and ‘No suitable offer for education or training’ data for BG and EL. ‘Other reasons (combined)’ category is the ad hoc grouping of the ‘Health or age reasons’, ‘Other reason’, ‘Course booked out’, ‘Distance’ and 'Too few registration’ categories. These usually have high proportions of low reliability flags which can be directly consulted in the Eurostat table. In the chart, several countries show a gap at the end of their columns and do not reach the 100% with the sum of every category. This is due to the unavailability of various data points in some of these categories
The distribution and even the order of prominence of the main obstacles stopping adults wanting to participate in adult education and training from doing so can appreciably vary from country to country (Figure 19).
Costs were the third most common obstacle encountered by that subgroup of the population at the EU27 level in 2022 (13.7%), and it reached much higher levels in some countries like Romania, where it was the first most common obstacle (31.2%), or Lithuania (24.6%). On the contrary, in some other countries not even 5% of adults not participating though wanting to claimed the reason was cost related: France (4.3%) and Czeck Republic (4.1%).
Time related obstacles also exhibit some variability at the country level. Cyprus is a visible outlier case for the ‘family reasons’ obstacle, being the only country with more than 30% of adults wanting to participate in adult education and training but not doing so for that main reason (44%). As for the schedule obstacle, there is not such a case of an outlier, but eight countries exceed the 30% threshold: Malta (41.3%), Latvia (40.1%), Hungary (38.1%), Bulgaria (37.1%), Italy (33.1%), Belgium (32.3%), Slovenia (31.4%) and Austria (30.1%). In any case, these two last obstacles are involved in another noteworthy pattern when analysed separately by gender.
Figure 20. Adult population wanting to participate in education and training but not participating by main reason and sex, and percentage gap by sex (Women - Men), AES data incl. GOJT (%). EU27, 2022.
Source: Eurostat, AES (trng_aes_179, access date: 12/03/2026).
Figure 20 shows 2022 EU27 values for four selected items indicated as main obstacles to participation in education and training by adult men and women that did not participate but wanted to along with their differences in response by gender. As it is evident, reasons for not participating are not equally distributed across the adult population wanting to participate. Some obstacles seem to affect more acutely women than men and vice versa.
The biggest difference is found in the ‘family reasons’ obstacle, stated as the main one by 18.7% of women and 9.3% of men (9.4 percentage points difference). On the other hand, the ‘schedule’ obstacle works the other way around (with a 7.6 percentage points difference in favour of men). This points to an important unbalance in the gender distribution of obstacles to education and training that deserves its own consideration but also hints again at the overall importance of time related conflicts and difficulties when wanting to participate in education and training. Other possible relevant variables are ‘costs’, which also affect more the participation of women, and ‘lack of support from employer or public services’, which men find more impeding.
Figure 21. Adult population wanting to participate in education and training but not participating by main reason and age groups (25¬ 34 years old and 55 64 years old), and percentage gap (oldest - youngest), AES data incl. GOJT (%). EU27, 2022.
Source: Eurostat, AES (trng_aes_180, access date: 12/03/2026).
The same kind of analysis can be done with the age variable, now focusing on the youngest and oldest groups of adults that have been considered for this article (Figure 21). As could have been expected, ‘health or age reasons’ are the main point of divergence between these two groups: for adults aged 55 64 this is the main reason in 12.2% of the cases, while the same happens only in 3.6% of the cases when the respondents are 25 34 years old (8.6 percentage points difference). On the contrary, the younger adults are more likely to consider ‘costs’ are the main reason for not participating, with a difference of 7.7 percentage points as compared to the older group. Other, smaller differences are found in the more time related reasons of ‘schedule’ and ‘family reasons’, the first being more commonly pointed out by the younger group of adults and the latter by the older one.
Figure 22. Adult population wanting to participate in education and training but not participating by main reason and highest level of educational attainment (ISCED levels 0 2 and ISCED levels 5 8), and percentage gap (highest – lowest qualified), AES data incl. GOJT (%). EU27, 2022.
Source: Eurostat, AES (trng_aes_181, access date: 12/03/2026).
Finally, Figure 22 compares the main reasons pointed out by adults not participating in education and training by highest level of educational attainment, focusing on the groups of adults with the lowest and the highest qualifications. The greatest difference found in this last section regarding main reasons for not participating is found between these two groups of adults. The higher qualified group of adults have a much more prone tendency to consider ‘schedule’ as the main reason, which is done in 28% of the cases, than the lower qualified one, for whom it is the main reason 14.6% of the times (meaning a 13.4 percentage points difference). On the other hand, lower qualified adults tend to point out ‘health or age reasons’ more, with a 7.5 percentage points difference as compared to the higher qualified adults. Apart from that, it should be noted that, for the first time in the last three charts, ‘costs’ instead of ‘schedule’ is the most common main reason for a subgroup of adults: low qualified adults, which consider it the main reason for not participating in 15.2% of the cases, 0.6 percentage points more than their own rate for ‘schedule’ and 3.3 percentage points more than the rate for the same reason for the high qualified group of adults.