A study conducted in Norway, using administrative register data spanning over four decades, explored the relationship between educational attainment and cognitive ability in men. The results indicated that the association between educational attainment and cognitive ability was weakening in the younger generations of Norwegians. The study was published in Scientific Reports.
Educational attainment refers to the level of formal education a person has completed, such as high school, college, or advanced degrees. It typically has a profound impact on one’s career prospects and socioeconomic status. Cognitive ability, on the other hand, encompasses a range of mental skills and capabilities, including problem-solving, memory, reasoning, and critical thinking. Good cognitive ability is generally considered to be a prerequisite for educational success, but the relationship might not be so straightforward.
In previous centuries, education was often the privilege of individuals from wealthy and powerful families. However, modern societies tend to work hard on making educational opportunities available to everyone. In that way, universal systems of education, those accessible to everyone should be lifting talented youths out of their own origin social class. Educational opportunities would, in this way, depend on individual (cognitive) ability rather than parental wealth and power. As a consequence, the strength of the link between educational attainment and abilities, primarily cognitive abilities would strengthen as education becomes more widely accessible. But is this really the case?
Study author Arno Van Hootegem and his colleagues wanted to examine how the link between educational attainment and cognitive ability changed over time. To do this, they examined the Norwegian administrative register that covers the whole population and linked scores from a cognitive ability test used at military conscription for men to different measures of individual educational qualifications.
They analyzed data of males born between 1950 and 1991. During this period the Norwegian educational system underwent substantial democratization as the Norwegian welfare state expanded. The educational system was publicly funded and broadly accessible, greatly reducing the differences between social classes in the accessibility of education. Compulsory primary education increased to 9 years in this period and higher secondary education became a universal right. The state also started offering stipends and loans to anyone who enrolled in tertiary education.
The study utilized standardized cognitive ability scores (stanine scores) derived from tests that included arithmetic, word similarities, and mental manipulation of figures. Educational attainment was evaluated in four distinct ways: the number of schooling years by age 30, two statistical measures of earnings related to specific educational credentials, and a statistical measure representing a continuum of observed education. The earnings-based measurements utilized annual earnings data.
Results showed that across generations, the correlation between cognitive ability and all four measures of educational attainment has been declining. While there was a strong correspondence between educational attainment and cognitive ability in men born in the 1950s, predicting educational attainment based on cognitive ability in individuals born in 1990 proved to be more challenging.
“The correlation remains moderate to strong in recent cohorts and cognitive ability remains coupled to educational attainment, but the clear trend indicates that educational attainment is weakening over time as a signal of cognitive ability,” the study authors concluded. “This observation together with the finding that we already find a very high correlation between educational attainment and cognitive ability for birth cohorts prior to educational reforms and the democratization of education, goes counter to the hypothesis that educational attainment increasingly aligns with individual level ability as educational opportunities are broadened. Essentially, it questions the presumed evolution from ascription to achievement as the guiding principle of success in post-industrial societies.”
“An alternative, potentially more plausible explanation for our findings, is the nature of the changing educational and labor market. Education might have become substantially less selective, as educational expansions may have made it generally easier to attain longer education, regardless of cognitive ability.”
The study sheds light on the temporal changes in the link between education and ability in Norway. However, it also has limitations that need to be taken into account. Notably, the cognitive test used at conscription remained unchanged since the early 1950s. It is possible that assessments it provided became less valid with newer generations creating lower correlations. Additionally, the data were available for Norwegian men only. Results on Norwegian women might not be the same.
The paper, “Correlation between cognitive ability and educational attainment weakens over birth cohorts”, was authored by Arno Van Hootegem, Ole Røgeberg, Bernt Bratsberg, and Torkild Hovde Lyngstad.
