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Literacy rate among young women aged 15–24

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Global Education

What you should know about this indicator

  • Literacy unlocks access to education, employment, and civic participation — this indicator shows what share of young people and adults can read and write a short, simple sentence with understanding.
  • It captures the percentage of individuals in a given age group (such as young people aged 15–24 or adults aged 15 and above) who are considered literate, based on their ability to both read and write.
  • The literacy rate is calculated by dividing the number of literate persons by the total number of individuals in the same age group, excluding those with unknown literacy status.
  • A high literacy rate signals that most people have acquired basic reading and writing skills, often through primary education or literacy programs. Low rates may indicate gaps in access, retention, or effectiveness of foundational education.
  • Data typically come from population censuses or household surveys and are often self-reported. In some countries, respondents may be asked to read or write a simple sentence or complete basic tasks to verify literacy.
  • The UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) and its partners also use statistical models to estimate literacy rates for years or regions where recent data are not available, supporting regional and global comparisons.
  • For most countries literacy is self-reported but there may be some challenges associated to changes over time in a given country and to differences in definition across countries.
  • Literacy should not be confused with functional literacy. This indicator reflects basic abilities but does not measure whether individuals can apply these skills effectively in daily life, work, or learning.

Number of females age 15 to 24 years who can both read and write with understanding a short simple statement on their everyday life, divided by the female population in that age group. Generally, ‘literacy’ also encompasses ‘numeracy’, the ability to make simple arithmetic calculations. Divide the number of people aged 15 to 24 years who are literate by the total population in the same age group and multiply the result by 100.

Literacy rate among young women aged 15–24
Share of women aged 15 to 24 years who can read and write.
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
1970–2023
Unit
%

Related research and writing

A dark blue background with a lighter blue world map superimposed over it. Yellow text that says Literacy by Our World in Data

Literacy

Max Roser and Esteban Ortiz-Ospina

Explore charts that include this data

Literacy rate of young men vs. women

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.

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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.
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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: Literacy rate among young women aged 15–24”, 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/youth-literacy-female [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. “Literacy rate among young women aged 15–24” [dataset]. UNESCO Institute for Statistics, “UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) - Education” [original data]. Retrieved June 18, 2025 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/youth-literacy-female