The debate on future skills focuses on those skills that enable people to remain capable of acting in a rapidly changing world and to help shape the future. Future skills are very often understood to include social and emotional skills, as a look at various frameworks confirms (see Table 1 in the fourth TRANSIT trend report). A newly published OECD report focuses on social and emotional skills and their importance for educational success, labour market integration and the well-being of adults.
New OECD report on social and emotional skills
The thematic report ‘Skills that Matter for Success and Well-being in Adulthood’ (OECD, 2025) is based on data on adult skills collected as part of PIAAC. Social and emotional skills are understood as agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, extraversion and openness to new experiences. These skills correspond to the so-called Big Five. The Big Five model of personality, also known as the Five Factor Model, aimed at identifying the fundamental traits of human personality.
Among the five domains assessed, openness and emotional stability stand out as predictors of educational attainment. These skills are also positively related to proficiency in literacy, numeracy and adaptive problem solving. Individuals with high levels of openness are more likely to participate in adult learning.
While cognitive skills such as literacy remain key determinants of labour market outcomes, social and emotional skills contribute independently to occupational choices, employment opportunities, wages and job satisfaction.
The study’s findings also highlight the importance of social and emotional skills in other areas of life. Higher levels of emotional stability and extraversion are related to greater life satisfaction and better health, while openness is positively linked to volunteering and the belief in one’s ability to influence political affairs
Significance of these empirical research results for future skills
The OECD’s findings are highly significant for the debate on future skills. They contribute to the legitimisation of certain future skills by showing that these have a measurable impact on educational success, labour market integration and well-being. This provides evidence that future skills are not just normative constructs, but empirically verifiable influencing factors.
However, one limiting factor here is that the OECD studies do not refer to specific future skills or the corresponding frameworks and therefore do not directly substantiate them with research results. Empirical research and discussions about future skills thus remain, once again, only interpretatively linked.
Such references can hardly be expected prior to research, because research must be based on theoretical concepts anchored in research in order to verify, reject or expand existing theses. However, it can be considered the task of the authors of the individual frameworks to systematically link empirical findings with normative competence concepts in order to show which effects could be demonstrated in which contexts for the future skills discussed.
Significance for adult learning
Regardless of the lack of integration of empirical research results into the future skills debate, the OECD’s findings are highly significant for adult learning. They mean that social and emotional skills, due to their central role in professional success and adult well-being, are among the fundamental areas of competence that need to be taken into account in adult learning and education.
The OECD therefore proposes expanding and formalising learning opportunities in this area. This could be achieved, for example, by promoting curricula that explicitly target social and emotional skills and by introducing micro-credentials that make corresponding learning achievements visible.