The OECD’s Education at a Glance 2024 report offers a comprehensive overview of the state of education worldwide. Italy has improved in some areas but there is still a large gender gap post-education, and lack of investment in education, particularly early childhood education.
The Education at a Glance 2024 publication features over 100 charts and tables, along with country-specific notes and additional data. It covers the output of educational institutions, the impact of learning across different countries, and details on access, participation, and progression in education. It also looks at the financial resources invested in education, and examines teachers, the learning environment, and school organisation.
The 2024 edition focuses on equity in education, presenting indicators on gaps in educational outcomes and exploring how educational attainment affects labour market results.
The OECD website highlights three key findings. In the first “The number of 25-34 year-olds without secondary attainment” the average saw a positive decline, falling across most OECD countries between 2016 and 2023. The average fell from 16% to 14%.
Italy saw a substantial decline. However, whilst the decline for Italy was good, it still shows the country way above the average. In 2016, it stood at 26%, while for 2023 it was 20% – six percentage points above the average.
Girls and women outperform boys and men in education
Overall, significantly more young women than men obtain advanced qualifications, yet their employment rate for those aged 25-34 remains lower than that of men. Among young women without an upper secondary qualification, the employment rate is 25 percentage points lower than their male counterparts. For young adults with tertiary qualifications, the gender gap in employment rates is narrower but still notable at 6 percentage points.
Young women also face an earnings gap. On average, women without an upper secondary qualification earn 15% less than men in the same group. For those with a tertiary qualification, the pay gap widens to 17%.
Italy bottom of league for female employment
Italian women may outperform men in education, but their salaries do not reflect that.
In Italy, only 36% of young women without an upper secondary education are employed, compared to 72% of young men. Among those with a tertiary education, 73% of young women and 75% of young men are employed.
However, having a tertiary education does not reduce the gender wage gap. In Italy, tertiary-educated young women earn, on average, 58% of the wage of their male peers, the largest gender earnings gap in the OECD. Young women with upper secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary qualifications earn 85% of what their male peers earn.
Teaching workforce
Italy’s education system has below-average student-to-teacher ratios, with 11 students per teacher in both primary and lower secondary institutions, and 10 in upper secondary institutions. These figures are all below the OECD average of 15:1.
Italy also has an older teaching workforce compared to other OECD countries. Fifty-three per cent of teachers are aged 50 or older, compared to the OECD average of 37% across all levels. Between 2013 and 2022, this share remained at 57% in primary, while it decreased from 63% to 48% in lower secondary and from 73% to 54% in upper secondary.
Financial resources invested in education
In Italy, the average annual expenditure per student from primary to tertiary education, including research and development, is US$12,760. This is lower than the OECD average of US$14,209.
In most countries, spending increases with the level of education. However, in Italy, the expenditure per student is US$13,799 in primary, US%11,739 in secondary, and US$13,717 in tertiary.
Italy allocates 4.0% of its gross domestic product (GDP) to educational institutions from primary to tertiary levels, including research and development. This is below the OECD average of 4.9% of GDP. Across the OECD, the share of GDP spent on educational institutions has remained stable, at 4.9% from 2015 to 2021, although trends differ significantly between countries. In Italy, this share has remained constant at around 4%.
Early childhood education has gained significant attention due to its importance, especially for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. However, public investment in early childhood education in Italy, relative to GDP, decreased by 11% between 2015 and 2021, while it increased by an average of 9% across the OECD during the same period.
Source: OECD (2024), Education at a Glance 2024: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/c00cad36-en.
