The Structure of Active Population by Educational Levels before and after the Economic Crisis. Was it Influenced by the Crisis?

AbstractThe continuous increase in the level of education in the EU countries is one of the fundamental objectives of the Europe 2020 strategy. Taking into consideration the fact that the economical efficiency is significantly influenced by the quality of the human resource, the level of education of the active population is an important variable in the process of the economic growth. The current different politics applied in the EU28 countries 20 years ago had a big structural diversity as a direct consequence concerning the level of education of the active population. Based on these findings, the paper analyses the evolution of the characteristics of the active population in the EU28 countries on the level of education in the last 10 years, a period which includes the economical crisis. The analyses based on official databases show the tendency of increasing the share of the active population with tertiary education and the relative stability of those with upper secondary and post-secondary non-tertiary education. At the same time the fact that the difference between the countries with high shares of the tertiary education attainment level and those with still low shares is continuously increasing is emphasized, the process still being divergent. The paper also investigates the convergence in terms of the structure of the active population in EU countries