In the 1980s, youth literacy was higher in Sub-Saharan Africa than in South Asia; it’s now the opposite

Forty years ago, young people had higher literacy rates in Sub-Saharan Africa than in South Asia. You can see on the chart that the region had a 10-percentage-point lead in 1985.

But things have changed a lot since then. Sub-Saharan Africa now lags by more than 14 percentage points.

While literacy has improved in both regions, it has done so much faster in South Asia. There, almost all young people have basic reading and writing skills. In Sub-Saharan Africa, most of them do, but there is still a significant lag behind other world regions.

In South Asia, the increase in literacy rates among young women has been particularly dramatic. In the mid-1980s, only around 40% had basic reading skills. That has more than doubled to over 90%, and the gap between young men and women has essentially closed.

Where this page came from

This page was imported from Our World in Data. “In the 1980s, youth literacy was higher in Sub-Saharan Africa than in South Asia; it’s now the opposite” by Hannah Ritchie, published by Our World in Data under CC BY 4.0. Changed here: set as a page, its interactive charts shown as pictures. Data from third parties keeps its own licence.

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