You can see a pattern where 55-64 has the lowest scores, then 45-54, then 35-44, than 25-34. Almost all countries are like that: younger generations have better skills than older ones.
And then we see a switch in many countries: 16-24 have lower scores than 25-34. There are some exceptions like Italy, Portugal or Ireland but in majority of countries young people are dumber than previous generation.
Is the test actually taken by 60 year olds, or are the results from when that generation became adults? Because in the former case, it’s expected that their results would be worse. Your cognitive skills decline as you get older, and many people don’t actually use the skills they’ve learned at their jobs, so there is also skill decay due to lack of usage. My mom would have probably been more literate than me when when we were both 20, but probably is not right now.
My point is, you can only make inter-generational comparisons by normalizing for age, say in the 20-30 peak range.
What are Finland, Japan, and Estonia doing to be at the top of those? The spread is not that wide, but still. The US seems super clustered while most other countries seem to show a generational difference.
Japanese schools absolutely destroy everyone who does not conform. Everyone behaves and studies because kids that stand out are bullied relentlessly with the permission of teachers.
Finland is a small country with a lot of resources that cares about education. They always try new methods, respect teachers and pay them well.
This article is at a level of 10-year-olds. They are talking about The Survey of Adult Skills. OECD does it every year. It’s part of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_the_International_Assessment_of_Adult_Competencies
Latest results are here: https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2024/12/do-adults-have-the-skills-they-need-to-thrive-in-a-changing-world_4396f1f1/b263dc5d-en.pdf
I think the article is commenting on this part:
You can see a pattern where 55-64 has the lowest scores, then 45-54, then 35-44, than 25-34. Almost all countries are like that: younger generations have better skills than older ones.
And then we see a switch in many countries: 16-24 have lower scores than 25-34. There are some exceptions like Italy, Portugal or Ireland but in majority of countries young people are dumber than previous generation.
Is the test actually taken by 60 year olds, or are the results from when that generation became adults? Because in the former case, it’s expected that their results would be worse. Your cognitive skills decline as you get older, and many people don’t actually use the skills they’ve learned at their jobs, so there is also skill decay due to lack of usage. My mom would have probably been more literate than me when when we were both 20, but probably is not right now.
My point is, you can only make inter-generational comparisons by normalizing for age, say in the 20-30 peak range.
What are Finland, Japan, and Estonia doing to be at the top of those? The spread is not that wide, but still. The US seems super clustered while most other countries seem to show a generational difference.
Japanese schools absolutely destroy everyone who does not conform. Everyone behaves and studies because kids that stand out are bullied relentlessly with the permission of teachers.
Finland is a small country with a lot of resources that cares about education. They always try new methods, respect teachers and pay them well.
Don’t know about Estonia.
BTW, there’s also PISA:
https://www.oecd.org/en/data/dashboards/pisa-education-and-skills/performance-trends.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
Interesting how the “age gap” in the US for numeracy and literacy is conspicuously small. But relatively large for problem solving.
In others, you can see recent history in really humongous gaps.
Also, I can’t help but wonder how much of that is a “normal” trend? I was stupider, and would have tested worse, at 16. Maybe at 20.
I was thinking the same thing. We would have to look at results from 2015 for example.
And I found this:
This is from 2012. 16-24 had lower results than 25-34 so maybe it is a normal situation?
Interesting.
Yes that was my suspicion.
I think this would be a more solid trend if the 16-24 bracket ages, and ends up less intelligent when they’re 25-34.
So would you say that the article OP posted is misleading, and that the 16 to 24 bracket had also previously done worse on the test?
That’s the suspicion.
To be more accurate, I’d argue the data isn’t yet strong enough to support the headline.