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As the world exits the economic crisis, a new report argues that education and skills will be critical to restoring long-term growth, tackling unemployment, promoting competitiveness, and nurturing more inclusive and cohesive societies.

This year’s Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) publication Education at a Glance concludes that education holds the key to future wellbeing, and Education International (EI), the largest global federation of teacher organisations, strongly agrees.

“At first glance, the report, which analyses education systems indicators in OECD and partner countries, shows that education continues to expand in OECD countries,” says Guntars Catlaks, EI’s Senior Research Coordinator .“In fact, evidence suggests that the economic crisis and scant labour markets drove many people to take advantage of low opportunity costs to invest in their education with the aim of improving their chances for a better life.”

Yet, the report finds that socio-economic divisions are actually deepening, because the impact that skills have on the life chances of individuals has increased considerably.

The Report claims that changes in the income distribution towards greater inequality are increasingly determined by the distribution of education and skills in societies. Across OECD countries, 73% of people without an upper secondary education find themselves at or below the median level of earnings, while only 27% of university graduates do. This difference in income from employment between adults without upper secondary education and those with a tertiary degree continues to grow.

The risks – and, in many instances, also the penalties – of low educational attainment and low skills pertain not only to income and employment, but to many other social outcomes as well. For example, there is a 23 percentage-point difference between the share of adults with high levels of education who report that they are in good health and the share of adults with low levels of education who report so.

The report strongly emphasises that levels of interpersonal trust, participation in volunteering activities, and the belief that an individual can have an impact on the political process are all closely related to both education and skills levels.

Indeed, the increasing social divide between the educational “haves” and “have-nots”– and the risks that the latter are excluded from the social benefits of educational expansion – threatens societies as a whole. Analysis of data from the Survey of Adult Skills shows that when people of all skill levels benefit from greater access to education, so do economic growth and social inclusion. Inclusive societies need education systems that promote learning and the acquisition of skills in an equitable manner.

Education at a Glance 2014 acknowledges that different policies produce different outcomes, and this is also true with regard to education and skills. Most importantly, by concluding that some countries do better than others in breaking the cycle of social inequality that leads to inequality in education, in containing the risk of exclusion based on education and skills, OECD admits that education alone cannot fix social problems – it requires integrated policies across the field.

You can read Education International’s Summary analysis of the key findings of the 2014 OECD Education at a Glance here.