This study aims to investigate whether economically inactive women’s participation in nonformal lifelong learning enhanced their core competencies such as literacy, numeracy and problem solving skills, after controlling selection bias. Data from 1,252 economically inactive women identified from PIAAC 2013 were analyzed applying logistic regression and propensity score matching. Main findings are as follow: First, in addition to their educational background and kids’ ages, economically inactive women’s wage working and volunteering experiences, computer experience and intrinsic motivation predicted the probability of participating in nonformal lifelong education. Second, participation in nonformal lifelong education positively affected their literacy and problem-solving skills, but had nothing to do with numeracy. Third, women’s wage working experience was significantly predicted their problem solving skill, while their intrinsic learning motivation and volunteering experience were associated with literacy and numeracy. These findings suggest that educational background as well as computer accessibility are important for economically inactive women to participate in lifelong learning, and thus political supports need to be designed to address differential educational background and computer accessibility. Also, their burden of unpaid work at home such as child care as well as working experience need to be valued and also supported to supplement the discontinuity in learning.