Literate and illiterate world population
The share of adults aged 15 and older who can read and write a short, simple statement on their everyday life.
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Related research and data
- Access to basic education: almost 60 million children of primary school age are not in school
- Ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning
- Global Education
- How is literacy measured?
- Literacy
- The short history of global living conditions and why it matters that we know it
Charts
- Adult literacy rate
- Data instruments used to estimate literacy
- Estimated historical literacy rates
- Female youth literacy rate
- Historical literacy in England, by sex
- Literacy by years of schooling, United States
- Literacy rate
- Literacy rate in adult men
- Literacy rate in adult women
- Literacy rate of young men and women
- Literacy rate of young men vs. womenScatterplot
- Literacy rate vs. GDP per capita
- Literacy rate vs. average years of schooling
- Literacy rates of adult males, one-sentence test (DHS) vs. self-reports (UNESCO)
- Literacy rates of older vs. younger population
- Literacy rates, adult female, one-sentence test (DHS) vs. self-reports (UNESCO)
- Literacy rates, survey estimates vs. official UNESCO estimates
- Living languages
- Male youth literacy rate
- Methodologies used for measuring literacy
- Numeracy skills of adults young adults vs adults
- Numeracy vs. literacy skills of adults
- Share of the population with basic numeracy skills
- Students in grade 2 who can't read a single word
- UNESCO literacy rate vs. PIAAC literacy proficiency
- Youth literacy rates, adjusted gender parity index