Jaarboek 2012 van Eurostat – Europese Unie in cijfers (en)

What share of those aged 18 to 24 left school early and what proportion of young people in the EU have completed at least upper secondary education? How much do households in the EU spend on food and on housing and clothing? How many mobile phone subscriptions are there per inhabitant and how many text messages are sent per person?

The answers to these questions and many more can be found in the 16th edition of the Eurostat yearbook1, published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. The Eurostat yearbook is available as a regularly updated electronic publication on the Eurostat website.

Europe in figures - Eurostat yearbook 2012 presents a comprehensive selection of the statistical data available at Eurostat, together with explanatory text. The yearbook is an introduction to European statistics and provides guidance on the vast range of data freely available from the Eurostat website2 and its online databases. The yearbook shows how key indicators have developed in the EU27, the euro area and the Member States. Data for the EFTA countries, the Candidate countries, the US and Japan are also included when available.

The 2012 yearbook has thirteen chapters on different statistical areas: economy and finance; population; health; education and training; labour market; living conditions and social protection; industry, trade and services; agriculture, forestry and fisheries; international trade; transport; environment; energy; and science and technology.

This release presents a small selection of the statistics presented in the yearbook.

Highest proportion of early leavers from education found in Malta, Portugal and Spain

Early leavers from education and training are defined as persons aged 18 to 24 who have completed at most lower secondary education and who have not received any education or training in the last four weeks. The Europe 2020 strategy and the strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training3 have set a target of 10% for 2020 for this indicator. In 2010, the percentage was 14% on average in the EU27, and varied among the Member States, from 5% in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Poland to 37% in Malta, 29% in Portugal and 28% in Spain. In the EU27, the proportion was 12% for women and 16% for men, with higher shares for men in all Member States, except Bulgaria and Slovakia.

Data on educational attainment show that 79% of those aged 20 to 24 in the EU27 had completed at least upper secondary education in 2010. The percentages varied among the Member States from 53% in Malta, 59% in Portugal, 61% in Spain and 68% in Denmark to 93% in Slovakia, 92% in the Czech Republic and 91% in Poland. On average in the EU27, 82% of women and 76% of men had completed at least upper secondary education in 2010. The percentage for women was higher than for men in all Member States except Bulgaria and Slovakia.

The age of students in tertiary education depends on many factors: whether they postpone starting tertiary education either by choice (e.g. by taking a gap year between secondary and tertiary education) or obligation (e.g. for military service), the length of the courses studied and the extent to which mature students return to education later in life. The median age in tertiary education was 22.1 in the EU27 in 2009, with the highest median ages observed in Sweden (25.3), Denmark (25.2), Finland (24.5) and Austria (23.8), and the lowest in Ireland (20.2), France (20.5), Belgium and Malta (both 20.7).

Education