Adult education participation is a hot issue. Participation rates, however, show a lot of inequalities among countries as well as among individuals with a different socioeconomic background. Within this article, we will define adult education, take a look at recent European participation statistics and explain the unequal divisions. We will introduce the Chain of Response Model by Patricia Cross (1981) to show the multicomplexity of the decision process undergone before the actual participation. We will end with the observation that adult education is a shared responsibility among three partners: individuals, educational institutions and regulating governments.

Keywords: adult education, lifelong learning, participation, inequalities