Education as a Social Well-Being Indicator

Education is a well-discussed topic in the 2014 Arctic Human Development Report (AHDR). Much of it focused on compulsory education; however, the information presented is also applicable to higher education. First, the report reiterated the findings of the 2004 AHDR that called for the dedication of additional resources to education.[1] This is because, as reflected in the 2014 report, education is a driving force in the growth of human capital, which in turn is responsible for “maintain[ing] a stable and expanding economic base and ensur[ing] human well-being.”[2] The report posits education completion is indicative of the motivation level of residents and representative of job availability.[3] Further, there is a correlation between an increase in education levels and a decrease in unemployment numbers for a community.[4]

The data above conveys the health of education in three Arctic regions: Alaska, Norway, and Sweden. The blue lines represent the increase percentage of individuals in the three regions who possessed a Bachelor’s degree. Increases between 2000-2010 are shown in light blue and 2010-2020 are dark blue. Similarly, the green lines depict the increase percentages of people with a either a Master’s or Doctoral degree. The light green illustrates the increase between 2000-2010 and the dark green 2010-2020.

Although there is an increase of individuals who possess a college degree in all three regions, there is not a steady rise of education completion. In both Alaska and Sweden there was a decrease in the percentage increase of people who had their college degrees in both 2000-2010 and 2010-2020. However, Norway’s percentage increase has grown over both time periods. This data collected reflects the finding in the 2014 AHDR that “education [is a] major challenge in the future.”[5] Further research would be beneficial to ascertain why Norway is the only region of the three that has experienced a growth in the increase percentages of individuals with college degrees.

Challenges to creating this chart: The data from Alaska and Norway were relatively simple to extrapolate in the desired ages (twenty-five years and older). Sweden’s information took approximately three hours to calculate because numbers for men and women had to be added for every age from twenty-five to seventy-four for both post-secondary education of three years (BA) and post-graduate education (MA/PhD).

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FOOTNOTES: [1] Norden, “Arctic Human Development Report: Regional Processes and Global Linkages,” 2014, https://norden.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:788965/FULLTEXT03.pdf, 25-6. [2] Ibid., 367. [3] Ibid., 319. [4] Ibid., 367. [5] Ibid., 339.