As we can see, literacy rates grew constantly but rather slowly until the beginning of the twentieth century. The visualization presents estimates of world literacy for the period 1800-2014. Even in early-industrialized countries it was only in the 19th and 20th centuries that rates of literacy approached universality. In fact, while the ambition of universal literacy in Europe was a fundamental reform born from the Enlightment, it took centuries for it to happen. It was only until the Middle Ages that book production started growing and literacy among the general population slowly started becoming important in the Western World. While the earliest forms of written communication date back to about 3,500-3,000 BCE, literacy remained for centuries a very restricted technology closely associated with the exercise of power. Regarding the consequences of education, a growing body of empirical research suggests that better education yields higher individual income and contributes towards the construction of social capital and long-term economic growth. Since differences in national expenditure on education do not explain well cross-country differences in learning outcomes, the data suggests that generic policies that increase expenditure on standard inputs, such as the number of teachers, are unlikely to be effective to improve education outcomes. Despite all these worldwide improvements, some countries have been lagging behind, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, where there are still countries that have literacy rates below 50% among the youth.ĭata on the production of education shows that schooling tends to be largely financed with public resources across the globe, although a great deal of heterogeneity is observed between countries and world regions. Secondary and tertiary education have also seen drastic growth, with global average years of schooling being much higher now than a hundred years ago. Global literacy rates have been climbing over the course of the last two centuries, mainly though increasing rates of enrollment in primary education.
This can be seen across all quantity measures. In this entry we begin by providing an overview of long run changes in education outcomes and outputs across the world, focusing both on quantity and quality measures of education attainment and then provide an analysis of available evidence on the determinants and consequences of education.įrom a historical perspective, the world went through a great expansion in education over the past two centuries. Indeed, in most countries basic education is nowadays perceived not only as a right, but also as a duty – governments are typically expected to ensure access to basic education, while citizens are often required by law to attain education up to a certain basic level. These include:Įducation is widely accepted to be a fundamental resource, both for individuals and societies. The visualizations and research discussed here are also discussed in other, more specific data entries.
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