The Ledger · Entry 10
The average adult now spends years in school, not months
Average years of formal education completed, ages fifteen to sixty-four
Data: Our World in Data, based on Barro and Lee (2015) and Lee and Lee (2016)
A century and a half ago the typical adult had barely set foot in a classroom. Formal education was for a small few, and most people learned a trade or a farm instead of a curriculum.
The key rows
Then schooling spread country by country, and each generation entered adulthood better educated than the one before it. The world average has been climbing steadily ever since.
Asked often
How many years of schooling did people have in the nineteenth century?
In 1870 the global average adult had completed 0.5 years of formal schooling. By 2020 that had risen to 8.8 years.
Whose schooling does this measure?
It is the population-weighted global average years of completed formal education for people aged fifteen to sixty-four, drawn from the Barro-Lee and Lee-Lee datasets.
Does this include the most recent years?
The dataset extends into projected years, but the endpoint used here, 2020, is the latest year of actual estimates rather than a projection.
The world also got better today.
The long lines above are made of single days. We find each day's and send you the proof every morning. Free, forever.
Free forever, no spam. One click to unsubscribe, and we never sell your email.