Literacy and the Labour Market: The Generation of Literacy and Its Impact on Earnings for Native Born Canadians - ARCHIVED

This study examines the distribution of literacy skills in the Canadian economy and the ways in which they are generated. In large part, the generation of literacy skills has to do with formal schooling and parental inputs into their children's education. The nature of literacy generation in the years after individuals have left formal schooling and are in the labour market is also investigated. Once the core facts about literacy in the economy have been established, the study turns to examining the impact of increased literacy on individual earnings. Both the causal impact of literacy on earnings and the joint distribution of literacy and income are explored. The authors argue that the latter provides a more complete measure of how well an individual is able to function in society.

The study focuses mainly on data from the Canadian component of the 2003 International Adult Literacy and Skills Survey (IALSS), composed of a sample of over 22,000 respondents. The Canadian component of the 1994 International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) is also used in order to obtain a more complete picture of how literacy changes with age and across birth cohorts.