Illiteracy, Adult in Developing Nations

Adult Illiteracy Worldwide

The overwhelming majority of the world's illiterate adults live in the less-developed regions of the world, including South and West Asia (41 percent of adults are illiterate), sub-Saharan Africa (40 percent), the Arab States (37 percent), Latin America and the Caribbean (10 percent), and East Asia and the Pacific (9 percent). In 1990, which was celebrated around the world as International Literacy Year, UNESCO and its member nations made a major effort to promote the education of women. At that time women comprised about two thirds of the world's illiterate adults. Unfortunately, over a decade later, women still make up about two thirds of the world's illiterate adults. Women are particularly vulnerable to illiteracy in East Asia and the Pacific, where they constitute almost 72 percent of adult illiterates; the Arab States (64 percent); Southern Asia (62 percent); and sub-Saharan Africa, where women constitute about 60 percent of adult illiterates.

Globally, in terms of the extent to which literacy rates for women are at parity with those for men, 88 women are literate for each 100 men, indicating an 88 percent parity rate of women's literacy to men's literacy for the world. These parity rates are lower (.66 to .76) for the regions cited in the previous paragraph.

Some Lessons Learned

Among the important lessons distilled from the international communities' work to raise the world's literacy rate for adults, two are especially important: (1) Adult literacy programs generally produce multiplier effects, meaning that important outcomes beyond the learning of literacy are frequently forthcoming, and (2) adult literacy programs often have intergenerational consequences, meaning that improving adult literacy, especially that of women, increases the likelihood of children's education.