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Drawing on data from TALIS Starting Strong 2018, this paper explores diversity, equity and inclusion in early childhood education and care (ECEC). It examines how four dimensions of diversity (e.g., socio-economic disadvantage, special education needs, different first language, and refugee status) as well as their accumulation apply to the populations of children attending ECEC centres in the nine countries participating in the survey. Further, it analyses variation in indicators of quality of ECEC between more and less diverse ECEC centres, looking at both structural quality factors (e.g., overall resources; staff composition, experience, and working conditions) and attitudes and practices in ECEC centres (e.g., staff sense of self-efficacy and practices with children; interactions with families and other services). Results shed new light on the extent to which the quality of ECEC varies for different groups of children and the capacity of ECEC systems to respond to the diversity of children's needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the role of countries' overall skills endowment on their trade comparative advantage. It tests the theoretical model of Ohnsorge and Trefler (2007) who argue that it is the bundling of various skills at the worker level and their joint distribution that matter for industry and trade specialisation. This departs from the literature assuming that workers are endowed with only one type of skills, which are generally measured by educational attainment. To test the predictions of the model, this paper uses information on cognitive skills assessed within the OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) and data from the OECD-WTO Trade in Value Added (TiVA) database. Results show that workers' skills bundles and their distribution have a larger effect on specialisation than countries' endowment of capital per employee or the relative endowment of workers possessing different levels of education. Furthermore, this study tests the model of Bombardini et al. (2012) for a large cross-section of countries and finds evidence that the within-country dispersion of skills significantly affects specialisation patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the role of countries' overall skills endowment on their trade comparative advantage. It tests the theoretical model of Ohnsorge and Trefler (2007) who argue that it is the bundling of various skills at the worker level and their joint distribution that matter for industry and trade specialisation. This departs from the literature assuming that workers are endowed with only one type of skills, which are generally measured by educational attainment. To test the predictions of the model, this paper uses information on cognitive skills assessed within the OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) and data from the OECD-WTO Trade in Value Added (TiVA) database. Results show that workers' skills bundles and their distribution have a larger effect on specialisation than countries' endowment of capital per employee or the relative endowment of workers possessing different levels of education. Furthermore, this study tests the model of Bombardini et al. (2012) for a large cross-section of countries and finds evidence that the within-country dispersion of skills significantly affects specialisation patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]