Education and Productivity: A Comparison of Great Britain and the United States
| Date | 01 July 1986 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.1986.tb00685.x |
| Published date | 01 July 1986 |
| Author | Anne Daly |
British Journal
of
Industrial Relations
2412
July
1986 0007-1080
$3.00
Education and Productivity:
A
Comparison
of
Great Britain and the
United States
Anne
Dalp’
There has been considerable interest expressed recently in Britain in the
role
of
education and vocational training
of
the workforce in promoting a
better economic performance. Schemes such as the Youth Training
Scheme, administered by the Manpower Services Commission, have the
expressed aim
of
improving the skills
of
the workforce in order to make the
British economy more internationally competitive.
The relationship between education and economic performance is
complex and a number
of
studies have attempted to analyse it by way
of
international comparisons (see, for example, Prais
ef
al.,
1981).
Prais
(1981)
and Hollenstein
(1983)
have compared British skill endowments
respectively with West Germany and Switzerland and found Britain
lacking, particularly in workers trained at the intermediate level with
apprenticeship qualifications. While about half
of
the British workforce
had no qualification beyond the minimum school leaving requirement
of
having reached a particular age, this was true for only a quarter
of
the
German and Swiss workforce. In the comparison between Britain and
West Germany, the British deficiency in skills was linked with relatively
lower productivity and in the British/Swiss comparison, with an inferior
trading performance. This paper presents a comparison, with another
country, the United States
of
America, where skill formation is undertaken
in a different context. Education and vocational training tends to be
schools based in the U.S. in contrast with the German and Swiss emphasis
on work-based training.
The paper is divided into four sections. The first compares the stock
and recent output
of
university graduates and those with intermediate
skills in the
U.S.
and Britain. The second examines the training
of
skilled
workers in the U.S. The third considers the statistical relation between
the educational stock and economic performance in the manufacturing
sector and the final section provides a summary and draws some con-
clusions.
*
Research Officer. National Institute
of
Economic and Social Research.
252
British Journal
of
Industrial Relations
1.
QUALIFICATIONS
OF
THE BRITISH AND UNITED
STATES WORKFORCES
1)
The Current Stock
of
Education held
by
the workforces
In
1977-8,
the
U.S.
population had been in full-time schooling for, on
average,
11.8
years compared with the British average of
11.0
years.* The
gap was even larger in the younger age groups. The median pupil in the
U.S.
now leaves school in his nineteenth year compared with his British
counterpart who leaves soon after his sixteenth birthday, implying an extra
year
of
education in the US. once the later commencement age has been
taken into account. These population differences were also apparent in the
stock of educational qualifications held by the workforce in the two
countries in the
1970s.
Table
1
divides the British and U.S. labour forces according
to
three
broad levels
of
educational attainment. These figures should not be
TABLE
1
Educational Attainment in the Labour Force in Britain
(1974-8)
and the U.S.
(1977-8).”
Employmenr in each
sector as percentage
of
total employment
University”
All activities G.B.
100
5.5
U.S.
100
17.7
Manufacturing G.B.
31.8 3.3
U.S.
22.8
11.0
Non- G.B.
6X.2 6.5
Manufacturing
U.S.
77.2 19.7
Persons with stated qualification
levels
as
percentage
of
labour force
in each sector
Intermediate‘ None’
42.0 52.5
56.7 25.6
38.9 57.8
57.1 31.9
43.4 50. 1
56.6 23.7
Sources: O.P.C.S.
Cheral Household Survey,
1974-8,
unpublished tables;
U.S.
Department
of
Labour. Bureau
of
Labour Statistics.
Educarionul Attuinment
of
Workers,
1977-8,
Special Labour Force Reports Nos.
209
and
225.
NOTES
a.
A further breakdown
of
these figures
for
twelve manufacturing industries and ten non-
manufacturing industries is available in Daly
(19x3).
h.
Members
of
professional institutions with qualifications
of
degree standard (Census
of
Population ’b’ levcl) and graduate teachers are included in the British figures.
For
the
U.S.
it includes all who have completed four
or
more years
of
full-time college.
c. Includes for Britain, non-graduate qualifications such
as
H.N.C. and City and Guilds Full
Technological Certificates; O.N.C./O.N.D. apprenticeships, G.C.E. ‘A’ level,
‘0’
level
and
C.S.E.
qualifications. For the
U.S.
it includes those who have completed high school
and those
who
have completed one to three years
of
full-time college education. The
U.S.
data include those who have completed one
or
two year courses and those who started but
did not complete,
a
four year programme.
d. For Britain. includes those with no educational
or
vocational qualification.
For
the
U.S.
includes those who have not completed high school.
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