The global literacy rate for all people aged 15 and above is 86.3%. The global literacy rate for all males is 90.0%, and the rate for all females is 82.7%.
While only 12% of the people in the world could read and write in 1820, today the share has reversed: only 14% of the world population, in 2016, remained illiterate. Over the last 65 years the global literacy rate increased by 4% every 5 years – from 42% in 1960 to 86% in 2015.
In 2019, the illiteracy rate among adults aged 15 years and older was 34.7 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa. In South Asia the illiteracy rate was 27.1 percent....The illiteracy rate among all adults (over 15-year-old) in 2019, by world region.CharacteristicThe illiteracy rate among all adultsArab States20.6%5 more rows•Jan 17, 2022
Adult literacy rate is the percentage of people ages 15 and above who can both read and write with understanding a short simple statement about their everyday life.