Population aging in the context of education. Comparison of selected EU countries

The arrival of the fourth industrial revolution hasfundamentally affected the economy of the developed countries. New and developing fields will need workers with quality education corresponding to the needs and demands of technological development. Thus, the share of tertiary educated population significantly affects the economic level of every country. As a result of the projected population ageing in the developed countries, a major problem with the share of the economically active people can be expected across Europe. The increased share of tertiary educated people in economy can positively influence this problem. Therefore, the article deals with the projection of the share of tertiary educated people. On the basis of information on the education structure of individual EU countries, a hierarchical cluster analysis was created, which was used for selecting countries. For the two most significant clusters, the country with values of all selected indicators most similar to the cluster average values has been selected. A population projection was created for these countries, on the basis of which the total dependency ratio, child-dependency ratio and old-age dependency ratio were calculated. In conclusion, it can be stated that even if the population ageing continues, the number of tertiary-educated persons may remain unchanged.