Many Germans do not manage to surpass the level of education of their parents.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin The level of education among Germans improved over the decades: there were more and more academics and fewer unskilled workers. This supposed permanent trend has turned around recently. By 2014, the proportion of people between the ages of 25 and 64 who had no vocational training had fallen to just 16 percent.
By 2022, however, it rose again to more than 21 percent. This is shown by a study by the employer-related Institute of the German Economy (IW), which is available to the Handelsblatt.
According to the federal government’s latest vocational training report, the absolute number of young unskilled workers aged between 20 and 34 reached a record level of 2.64 million in 2021 – that was a good half a million more than in 2018.
It is “to be feared that the proportion of people without completed vocational training could increase in the coming years,” the authors warn. Various school tests, including the igloo study on the reading skills of fourth graders, recently showed that the proportion of students with serious learning deficits has increased. This also reduces their chances of obtaining a professional qualification.
The IW therefore calls for more support for weaker children, especially when it comes to language development. This must happen as early as possible, i.e. in daycare centers and elementary schools. Only then could the coming generations replace the older ones on the labor market in such a way that the level of prosperity of the Germans is not endangered.
In general, a fifth of all young people between the ages of 25 and 35 are better educated than their parents. However, there is a downward trend when looking at the group of 35-44 year olds, for whom the level of education is usually final.
Educational advancement, especially for people with a migration background
Here the proportion of those who are better educated than their parents has fallen only slightly in the 20 years since 2000 from 22.5 to 21.8 percent. This also has to do with the fact that the respective generation of parents is better educated, so the children can hardly surpass them.
According to the IW study, however, the proportion of those who achieve a lower level of education than their parents has risen massively: it jumped from a good three to more than 15 percent and has thus increased fivefold. Educational downgrades compared to their parents are more common among men than among women.
The majority of those who do not achieve a vocational qualification still come from so-called educationally disadvantaged families who have no vocational training themselves.
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Educational advancement is particularly common among citizens with a migration background: around 29 percent of 25 to 34-year-olds have higher qualifications than their parents. For people without a migration background, it was just over 21 percent.
This also has to do with the fact that the level of education of the respective generation of parents of the migrants is significantly lower and it is therefore easier for the children to surpass them.
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