Average years of schooling for men
What you should know about this indicator
- Mean years of schooling shows the average number of years that adults in a country have spent in formal education, giving us a picture of how educated the population is overall.
- This number is calculated by asking adults about the highest level of school they completed, then figuring out how many years that typically takes. For example, someone who finished high school might have about 12 years of schooling.
- This indicator measures how much education adults have accumulated over their lifetimes, showing the results of past investments in schools and learning.
- The data comes from surveys and censuses where adults aged 25 and older report their educational background. Only formal schooling from primary school onwards is counted.
- Higher numbers mean adults in that country have generally stayed in school longer, showing stronger educational foundations. However, this doesn't tell us about the quality of education, learning outside of school, or whether younger people today are getting better education than the average suggests.
Sources and processing
This data is based on the following sources
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Citations
How to cite this page
To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:
“Data Page: Average years of schooling for men”, part of the following publication: Hannah Ritchie, Veronika Samborska, Natasha Ahuja, Esteban Ortiz-Ospina, and Max Roser (2023) - “Global Education”. Data adapted from UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/mean-years-of-schooling-male [online resource]How to cite this data
In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:
UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2025) – processed by Our World in DataFull citation
UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2025) – processed by Our World in Data. “Average years of schooling for men” [dataset]. UNESCO Institute for Statistics, “UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) - Education” [original data]. Retrieved June 18, 2025 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/mean-years-of-schooling-male