Lifelong learning and skills for longer lives

Lifelong learning has been associated with many benefits, from supporting work and careers to improving health and well being and increasing community engagement. Its importance is growing as longer life expectancy combines with a rapidly changing economy and society.

However, participation in learning has fallen substantially since 2010 with large inequalities in access to learning by age, socioeconomic group, region and nation, and prior educational attainment.

Our ‘Lifelong learning and skills for longer lives report’ sets out the findings of new research by L&W, funded by Phoenix Insights. This research set out to build an evidence base on the employment-related impact of lifelong learning on individuals, employers and the wider economy. The work included an evidence review, employer interviews and analysis of the UK Household Longitudinal Study and Longitudinal Education Outcomes datasets to identify the causal impact of learning.