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Data

Share of the population aged 25+ years with post-secondary education or higher

See all data and research on:
Global Education

What you should know about this indicator

  • This indicator shows the share of adults (aged 25 and older) who have attained at least a post-secondary level of education, including vocational or university-level qualifications.
  • It is calculated by dividing the number of adults who have completed post-secondary or tertiary education by the total adult population in the same age group, then multiplying by 100.
  • This includes vocational training, college diplomas, associate degrees, bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, and doctoral degrees. Examples include nursing diplomas, engineering degrees, business administration degrees, and PhDs.
  • The 25+ age group is chosen because most people have completed formal education by this stage, making it a stable reference for educational attainment.
  • Data sources include national censuses, labour force surveys, and household surveys, typically harmonized after collection.
  • There are limitations to cross-country comparisons due to differences in how qualifications are defined and classified.
  • The indicator captures only the highest level of education completed. It does not reflect the quality of education or whether qualifications are actively used in the labour market.
Share of the population aged 25+ years with post-secondary education or higher
Percentage of adults aged 25 and older who have completed or education.
Source
UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2025) – with minor processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
May 1, 2025
Next expected update
May 2026
Date range
1970–2024
Unit
%

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

The UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) is the official and trusted source of internationally-comparable data on education, science, culture and communication. As the official statistical agency of UNESCO, the UIS produces a wide range of state-of-the-art databases to fuel the policies and investments needed to transform lives and propel the world towards its development goals. The UIS provides free access to data for all UNESCO countries and regional groupings from 1970 to the most recent year available.

Retrieved on
May 1, 2025
Retrieved from
https://databrowser.uis.unesco.org/resources/bulk
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), Education, https://uis.unesco.org/bdds, 2025

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

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: Share of the population aged 25+ years with post-secondary education or higher”, 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/share-of-the-population-with-a-completed-post-secondary-education [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) – with minor processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2025) – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Share of the population aged 25+ years with post-secondary education or higher” [dataset]. UNESCO Institute for Statistics, “UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) - Education” [original data]. Retrieved May 24, 2025 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-the-population-with-a-completed-post-secondary-education