Definition
EEDATTAIN records the person's educational attainment in terms of the level of schooling completed (degree or other milestone) for the European samples. The emphasis on level completed is critical: a person attending the final year of secondary education receives the code for having completed lower secondary only -- and in some samples only primary. All education that was relevant to the completion of a level should be taken into account even if it was provided outside of schools and universities.
EEDATTAIN does not necessarily reflect any particular country's definition of the various levels of schooling in terms of terminology or the number of years of schooling. EEDATTAIN is an attempt to merge -- into a single, roughly comparable variable -- samples that provide degrees, ones that provide actual years of schooling, and those that have some of both. In addition to EEDATTAIN, a country-specific education classification is provided which loses no information and reflects the particular educational system of that country.
Hungary 1980 and 1990 also give single years of schooling completed, recorded in YRSCHOOL.
EEDATTAIN has been classified according to the recommendations of the Conference of European Statisticians for the 2010 Population and Housing Censuses. EEDATTAIN presents a less detailed version of EDATTAIN for the European Samples.
