Global literacy keeps rising

Literacy – that mind-expanding, horizon-stretching, force-multiplier of personal productivity –  was long a skill of elites. Two centuries ago, one person in eight around the world could read and write. A century ago, it had grown to one in three. 

Now, the latest World Bank survey puts global literacy at 93 percent. In rich countries and throughout East Asia, Central Europe, and Latin America, literacy is virtually universal. Rates run lowest in sub-Saharan Africa, but even there most people are now literate.

This historic rise in literacy tracks – in reverse – the historic decline in extremely poor. The illiterate and those in absolute poverty were long the vast majority of people on the planet. Now they are a relatively small minority that has continued to shrink in the latest data.

Sources: World Bank; Our World in Data