The following statements describe the standard computation for amount of education or training (in years).

years of education =years of schooling + years of occupational training

Schooling:

• no degree <= 7 years

• lower school degree = 9 years

• intermediary school = 10 years

• degree for a professional coll. = 12 years

• high school degree = 13 years

• other = 10 years

additional occupational training (includes universities):

• apprenticeship = 1.5 years

• technical schools (incl. health) = 2 years

• civil servants apprenticeship = 1.5 years

• higher technical college = 3 years

• university degree = 5 years

Note that for a high school degree 13 years of education are being taken into account, despite the changes of reducing high school by one year in most German federal states in the period 2001-2007.

Furthermore, the introduction of a Bachelor/Master System in the German higher education system in the early 2000´s is not yet reflected in the calculation of years in (higher) education. Hence, 5 years of university education is taken into account although the respondents could have finished in 3 years with the Bachelor’s degree.