The clustered bar chart delineates estimated illiteracy rates for men and women across six world regions in the year 2000.
Overall, female illiteracy was higher than male illiteracy in all areas. The gap was especially wide in developing countries like South Asia and the Arab States, whereas developed regions had very low and similar rates between genders.
In developed countries, the illiteracy levels were extremely low for both genders, around 1%. Similarly, Latin America and East Asia showed a small gender gap, with women being only slightly more illiterate. Male illiteracy in these regions was below 10%, and females were about 2-3% higher.
Conversely, Sub-Saharan Africa, Arab States, and South Asia experienced much higher illiteracy levels. In South Asia, female illiteracy reached around 50%, while male rate was close to 30%. The Arab States had similar results. Sub-Saharan Africa also had a large difference, with about 30% of men and nearly 50% of women unable to read or write basic texts.