Illiteracy, Adult in Developed Nations

The International Adult Literacy Survey

The IALS methodology was the same as that of the National Adult Literacy Survey of 1993 in the United States. Like that survey, the IALS changed the traditional practice of dividing adults into the dichotomy of “illiterate” and “literate” and instead discussed adult literacy as a continuum from very low literacy to very high literacy. Using the traditional division of adults into illiterate and literate, UNESCO reported illiteracy rates of just 1 to 2 percent for developed nations in the mid-1990s. But using the methodology of the IALS, the percentages of adults in developed nations with very low literacy skills, which earlier would have been called “functional illiteracy,” were 10 times as high as the estimates of illiteracy given by UNESCO.

IALS developers defined literacy as using printed and written information to function in society, to achieve one's goals, and to develop one's knowledge and potential. Then, using door-to-door sampling methods, the IALS assessed the literacy skills of adults ages 16 through 65. The IALS developed performance scales composed of tasks for Prose Literacy (e.g., reading text materials such as newspapers, poetry); Document Literacy (e.g., scanning and completing forms or using a train schedule); and Quantitative Literacy (e.g., determining the amount of a tip for a restaurant meal or reviewing a bank statement). Scores on these three scales assign adults to one of five literacy levels (level 1 = very low; level 5 = very high literacy).

For 21 nations assessed in the IALS the percentages of native-born adults in the lowest level of literacy ranged from around 5 percent in Sweden to a high of over 50 percent in Chile, with an average for the 21 nations of about 20 percent on the Prose, Document, and Quantitative Literacy scales. Thus, on average, about one fifth of native-born adults ages 16 to 65 in these developed countries were considered to be “at risk” for social problems because of their low literacy. For foreign-born adults, the percentages were uniformly higher, averaging over 50 percent with Prose, Document, and Quantitative Literacy scores falling in the lowest level of literacy.

Using the Document performance tasks for illustrative purposes, with native- and non-native-born adults combined, 23.7 percent of United States adults ages 16 to 65 fell into the lowest level of literacy, while in Canada this percentage was 18.2, and 23.3 percent in the United Kingdom. Similar percentages, with a little variation, held for the assignment of adults to literacy level 1 on the Prose and Quantitative Literacy scales.

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