Socio-Economic Status Inequalities in Older Adults’ Learning Participation and Benefits

Abstract

Although later-life learning is an important contributor to active ageing, research suggests that older adults with lower socio-economic status (SES) may participate less in learning. Simultaneously, we know little about whether the benefits of later-life learning, in terms of quality of life (QoL), vary by older adult SES. Hence, we investigated whether SES shapes older adults’ participation in and benefits from learning. Using two waves of data (2016–17; 2019) from a nationally representative cohort of Singaporeans aged 60 to 95 years (n = 2,502), we find that older adults with higher education and occupational prestige had greater participation in both job- and nonjob-related learning. Moderation analyses showed that the beneficial effects of nonjob-related learning on QoL were only observed for lower-SES older adults. Our findings suggest that although lower-SES older adults benefit more from later-life learning, they are less likely to participate in it.