The share of young people without a secondary education has dropped 7 percent over eight years, but remained steady recently, with rates rising among non-Estonians.
Statistics Estonia, in a report commissioned by the Education and Youth Board (Harno), analyzed the share of 18–26-year-olds with low levels of education over the past eight years (2018–2025). The study defined a young person with low education as someone who has not obtained and is not in the process of obtaining a secondary education.
According to the study’s author, Henry Lass, data from the past eight years show that the proportion of young people with low education levels has fallen by 7 percent. The number and share of such youth peaked in 2018, when there were around 21,000 individuals without secondary education — 16.8 percent of all young people at the time. By 2025, that number had dropped to 19,500 or 15.6 percent.
“While the decline is small, the reduction in the share of youth with low education levels indicates that more and more young people are obtaining a secondary education,” Lass said. He added that the share was at its lowest in 2022 and 2023.
“However, over the past four years, the proportion of youth without secondary education has remained relatively stable,” Lass noted.
Educational gap between men and women closing
The analysis confirmed an educational gap between men and women. The share of 18–26-year-old men without a secondary education was higher than that of women: in 2018, 21.4 percent of young men lacked a secondary education, compared to 12 percent of young women.
“At the same time, it’s notable that while the share of men without secondary education declined over the observed period, the rate among women has remained largely unchanged,” said Lass. “Although young men were still more likely than women to lack a secondary education in 2025, the educational gap has narrowed slightly over the comparison period,” he added.
Share of non-ethnic Estonian youths without secondary education growing
According to Lass, when broken down by ethnicity, the share of Estonian youth without a secondary education has declined, while the proportion has increased among young people of other nationalities. For example, in 2023, 15.7 percent of Estonian youth lacked a secondary education; by 2025, that figure had dropped to 14.8 percent.
“The most notable increase among non-Estonian youth has occurred among Ukrainians — about 10 percent of Ukrainian youth had low education levels in 2023, rising to 17.8 percent in 2025,” Lass said.
He explained that the sharp rise among Ukrainian youth is tied to the significant influx of immigrants in recent years. In 2018, there were 1,076 Ukrainian youth aged 18–26 living in Estonia; by 2025, that number had grown nearly sevenfold, reaching 7,410.
The share of Russian youth with low education levels has remained consistently higher than the national average throughout the observed period — and continues to rise. In 2025, 21.2 percent of 18–26-year-old Russians lacked a secondary education, compared to the 15.6 percent average for all youth.
“Young people of other nationalities still show a significantly lower proportion of individuals without secondary education compared to the overall average, but their numbers have also grown rapidly in recent years — from 5.3 percent in 2018 to 7.4 percent in 2023 and 10.2 percent in 2025,” Lass said.
Across all the years studied, rural areas had the highest proportion of young people without a secondary education. In 2018, 22.1 percent of youth in rural areas lacked secondary education, compared to 15 percent in urban areas.
“That share has fallen more sharply in rural areas, reaching 18.9 percent by 2025. The change in urban areas has been more modest,” Lass noted. He explained that since rural areas started with a higher share of undereducated youth, there was more room for that figure to decrease. Additionally, the number of young people living in rural areas has dropped by about 3,000 over the past eight years.
Lass also pointed out that while small towns and rural areas have seen a steady decline in undereducated youth, urban areas have experienced a slight increase over the past three years. “This recent uptick in urban areas is likely driven by immigration, particularly among Ukrainians who have settled in cities,” he suggested.
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