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This paper is set against the current background of policies designed to increase and support lifelong learning in the United Kingdom (UK), leading to the establishment of a 'learning society'. The interim results of a large-scale study of patterns of participation in post-compulsory education and training are used to suggest that progress towards such a society is uneven and far from certain. Increasing full-time continuous participation by itself does not lead to patterns of lifelong learning, nor does simply increasing the number of existing opportunities or reducing the impact of barriers to participation (however laudable these objectives may be). More research is needed to uncover the specific determinants of participation in various types of formal learning as they are identified here, but it is already clear that while some forms of participation are susceptible to policies of widening access, others are less so. The latter may only be significantly altered by adjustments to the inequalities in society, but unless we are clear which is which, this new round of policies on lifelong learning may be directed at the wrong target.