The chart below show the percentage of the day working adults spent doing different activities in a particular country in 1958 and in 2008.

The graphic shows global rates of illiteracy for

last

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year broken down by both gender and area. It is evident that there are great discrepancies in literacy rates

according to

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both geographic location and sex. What is most striking when looking at the data is the fact that the burden of illiteracy is disproportionately borne by

women

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, wherever they hail from. In almost every region on the planet, the number of

women

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who cannot read is significantly higher than the number of illiterate

men

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; in East Asia and Oceania,

as well as

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in the developed countries, it is actually double. Only in Latin America and the Caribbean is there little disparity between the genders in literacy rates. The geographical distribution of education is

also

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plain in

this

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chart.

Men

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everywhere are less likely to be unable to read and write than

women

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:

however

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, in some parts of the world, extremely significant segments of the whole population are illiterate.

This

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is most marked in South Asia, the Arab states and Sub-Saharan Africa where approximately half of all

women

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do not possess literacy skills, a lack they share with a third of all

men

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. In East Asia, a fifth of

women

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and 10% of

men

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are uneducated in reading and writing.

This

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is in stark contrast with developed countries, where the proportion of illiterates is truly marginal, even though the absolute number of

women

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is

nevertheless

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double that of

men

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.

Overall

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, we can see that there are great differences in educational provision across the globe and that (leaving aside Latin America and the Caribbean) the lion’s share of illiteracy is given to

women

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.