Using data from the NIACE 2002 Adult Learners Survey and the ESRC Learning Society Programme, this article considers the prevalence and socio-economic determinants of work-based learning. The focus area is industrial South Wales, where the growth and sudden demise of the coal and steel industries provides a useful case study of the purported link between skill and economic success. The article is not able to present much clear evidence in favour of the economic strand of the learning society. Successive policies have not actually been conducive to real increases in training opportunities. Work-based training is not rising, is not being funded by employers in the main, and is predictable to a large extent from long-term social and family characteristics of each individual. © 2003 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
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