Human Capital Notes
Human capital endowments from a European perspective
Abstract
The educational level of the Spanish population has increased significantly in recent years, however, what is our situation compared with surrounding countries?The data in this issue shows a continuing gap in the educational composition of the population. Thus, the percentage of Spanish with post-compulsory secondary education (slightly over 23% of the population) is among the lowest in Europe and is close to other Southern European countries like Italy, Greece or Portugal. However, there has been educational convergence in other aspects: in 2010 Spain equaled the EU-15 average years of schooling (10.4).The European comparison offered in this issue distinguishes three broad categories: 1) the advanced countries in the European Union, with high percentages of population with at least upper secondary education, 2) the Eastern countries, in which most of the population has upper secondary education and 3) Southern countries, including Spain, where a significant part of the population does not exceed the compulsory educational level. Spain stands outs in its category with a low rate of upper secondary education and a great weight of higher education.This note also details the differences in education by gender and explains the relationship between human capital and the labor market by providing data on unemployment by educational level in the eight largest countries of the European Union.