The Adult Literacy and Life Skills (ALL) Survey: Education, Work and Literacy
This report presents an overview of New Zealanders’ skills in relation to educational and labour force characteristics and compares results from the 1996 International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) with results from the 2006 ALL survey. It was originally published in May 2008 and revised in April 2009. Please note that the original version of this report, published in May 2008, contained errors in Figures 6.1-6.5 and the associated commentary of Chapter 6: Occupation. This current and revised version rectifies these errors. You can also download each amended section independently on this page.
Author: Paul Satherley, Elliot Lawes, Saila SokDate Published: 9 May 2008 (Revised version April 2009)
1. Introduction
The Adult Literacy and Life Skills (ALL) survey is an investigation of the distribution of certain skills among people aged 16 to 65. The skills tested are literacy (both prose literacy and document literacy), numeracy and problem-solving. The survey is conducted across a number of countries, as well as providing information specific to New Zealand.
The ALL survey follows a similar survey conducted in 1996: the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS). Parts of the ALL survey are directly comparable to this earlier work. In particular, prose literacy and document literacy can be compared to provide a picture of some of the changes that have occurred over the previous decade.
For further information, please refer to The Adult Literacy and Life Skills (ALL) Survey: An Introduction. This publication is intended as a companion to any reporting on the ALL survey and contains such general information as the nature of the ALL survey and its application, as well as definitions, and descriptions of the skill domains and levels. Further information can also be found in the glossary on page 46, including definitions of the skills tested by the ALL survey (prose literacy, document literacy, numeracy and problem-solving) and the ways in which these are measured (levels of proficiency).
The focus of this report is on the distribution of literacy skills in New Zealand according to educational participation, labour force status, occupation, industry of employment, income and size of employer. Where possible, this report compares these distributions with those from the 1996 IALS survey. This report also includes an analysis of patterns of participation in up-skilling in New Zealand according to measured numeracy skill and self-assessed numeracy skill.
This report is the second in a series of four looking at the high-level results from the ALL survey. More in-depth analysis will be undertaken once this initial series has been completed.