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Males aged 15 and over have a literacy rate of 90%, while females lag only slightly behind at 82.7%. However, massive country-to-country differences exist. Developed nations almost always have an adult literacy rate of 96% or better.
The global literacy rate for all people aged 15 and above is 86.3%. The global literacy rate for all males is 90.0%, and the rate for all females is 82.7%. The rate varies throughout the world, with developed nations having a rate of 99.2% (2013), South and West Asia having 70.2% (2015), and sub-Saharan Africa at 64.0% (2015). [ 1 ]
The Mexico literacy rate is slightly lower at 95.25%, which is among the highest in North America. The China literacy rate is 97.15%, just under American Samoa. Overall, more than 75% of illiterate adults in the world are located in South Asia, West Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa.
Sep 9, 2023 · Here are three charts that explain literacy rates in the US and abroad: UNESCO data shows that the youth literacy rate was nearly 92% worldwide in 2020 up from 77% in 1975. But illiteracy...
- Sara Chernikoff
- Data And Graphics Reporter, Trending News
- Global Literacy Today
- Historical Change in Literacy
- Literacy Around The World Today
- Numeracy
Of the world population older than 15 years, the majority are literate. This interactive map shows how literacy rates vary around the world. In many countries, more than 95% have basic literacy skills. Literacy skills of the majority of the population are a modern achievement as we show below. Globally, however, large inequalities remain, notably b...
Global literacy has grown substantially in the last two centuries
While the earliest forms of written communication date back to about 3,500-3,000 BCE, for centuries literacy remained a very restricted technology closely associated with the exercise of power. It was only during the Middle Ages that book production started growing, and literacy among the general population slowly started becoming important in the Western World.1 While the ambition of universal literacy in Europe was a fundamental reform born from the Enlightenment, it took centuries for it t...
When did literacy start increasing in Europe?
The following visualization shows the spread of literacy in Europe since the 15th century, based on estimates from Buringh and Van Zanden (2009).2 As can be seen, the rising levels of education in Europe foreshadowed the emergence of modern societies. Particularly fast improvements in literacy took place across Northwest Europe in the period 1600-1800. As we discuss below, widespread literacy is considered a legacy of the Age of Enlightenment.
The ambition of universal literacy in Europe was a reform born of the Enlightenment
The next chart shows historical estimates of literacy in England over the last five centuries. The historical estimates are based on the percentage of men and women who could sign documents, a very basic definition of literacy that is often used in historical research on education.3 The first observations refer to men and women in the diocese of Norwich, which lies to the Northeast of London. Here, the majority of men (61%) were unable to write their names in the late 16th century; for women,...
Literacy by generation
To assess the extent to which progress can be expected in the years to come, it is convenient to break down literacy estimates by age groups. The following map, using data from UNESCO, shows such estimates for most countries in the world. As can be seen, in the majority of nations, there is a large difference in literacy rates across generations. These large differences across generations point to a global trend: the high literacy rate among the youth indicates that as time passes, the litera...
Literacy rates by sex
The visualization shows the literacy for rates for young men and women. In countries above the diagonal dashed line, literacy rates are higher for young men than for young women; this is the case for many poorer countries. This chartshows the literacy rate by sex over time. This visualizationshows the ratio of the literacy rate between young women and men around the world.
Numeracy skills over the long run
Numeracy is the ability to understand and work with numbers. The visualization shows how this ability became more common in populations around the world based on a very basic definition of numeracy, the ability to state one's own age correctly.
Numeracy skills today
Compared to the data on literacy we have less information on numeracy skills in the world today. Some information comes from PIAAC, the OECD's survey of the skills of adults. The scatter plot shows how adults in OECD countries scored in the literacy and numeracy dimension. We see that the two aspects are closely correlated; those countries that have high literacy also have high numeracy. PIAAC is only available for the recent past, but it can still give us some insights into how numeracy skil...
May 23, 2024 · As part of an ambitious $30 million statewide initiative to boost literacy rates, New Mexico has planned a free four- to six-week summer reading program open to all public school students...
Jul 24, 2022 · That is grim news for New Mexico, which had a poverty rate in 2021 of 19.1% – the third highest in the country and well above the national poverty rate of 13.4%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
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