Weak PIAAC skills of parents. An international phenomenon

Differences regarding job-related skills of adults were compared between parents and persons without children, based on the first and second round of OECD’s international PIAAC database, providing data from about 215,000 persons from 33 countries. Unlike gender differences, having children was hardly investigated regarding cognitive skills by now, whereas so-called motherhood penalties regarding income are well known. The empirical analysis, consisting of mean comparisons and regression-type evaluation, strictly followed the methodology prescribed for PIAAC. On average, parents achieved smaller scores on Literacy, Numeracy, and (IT-related) Problem-Solving in almost every participating country compared to persons of the same gender without children, surpassing gender differences by far. The effect is strongest for the youngest age group between 15 and 24, but still large between 25 and 34. As expected, the parenthood gap is more pronounced for female than for male participants. Partly, these results can be explained by sociodemographic variables and the amount of time invested in skill-related activities; however, significant effects remained in 17 participating countries after controlling for all these variables. If parental burden is a disadvantage for job-related skills, as suggested by the results, the Covid-19 crisis might have aggravated this effect.