Literacy

Being able to read and write opens up the world of education and knowledge. When and why did more people become literate? How can progress continue?

Literacy is a key skill and a key measure of a population’s education. In this topic page, we discuss historical trends, as well as recent developments in literacy.

From a historical perspective, literacy levels for the world population have risen drastically in the last couple of centuries. While only one in ten people in the world could read and write in 1820, today, the share has reversed, with only one in ten remaining illiterate .

Despite large improvements in the expansion of basic education and the continuous reduction of education inequalities, there are substantial challenges ahead. The poorest countries in the world, where basic education is most likely to be a constraint for development, still have very large segments of the population who are illiterate.

Education has expanded widely, but large gaps in learning quality still trap many children in poverty and inequality. Explore our writing and data on global education.

Millions of children learn only very little. How can the world provide a better education to the next generation?

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 between some sub-Saharan Africa and the rest of the world. In some countries in sub-Saharan Africa, fewer than 1-in-3 adults (aged over 15 years) are able to both read and write.

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 to happen. It was only in the 19th and 20th centuries that rates of literacy approached universality in early-industrialized countries.

The following visualization presents estimates of world literacy from the early nineteenth century until the current day. As we can see, literacy rates grew constantly but rather slowly until the beginning of the twentieth century. The rate of growth really climbed after the middle of the 20th century, when the expansion of basic education became a global priority. You can read more about the expansion of education systems around the world on our topic page on Financing Education .

The following visualization shows the spread of literacy in Europe since the 15th century, based on estimates from Buringh and Van Zanden (2009). 2

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 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, it was much lower.

By 1840, two-thirds of men and about half of women were literate in England. The expansion of education led to a reduction in education gender inequality. Towards the end of the 19th century, the share had increased to almost three-quarters for both genders.