The table compares the estimated literacy rates by continent and gender from 2000 to 2004. It also shows an average number for all five regions: Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania for the same 4 years.
Europe has the highest literacy rate in comparison to the other regions with 98.8%, followed by the Americas with a rate of 93.6%. The lowest number corresponds to Africa which only counts with 62.5% of its population being literate. In between, there are Oceania and Asia, with a percentage of 93.4% and 79.3% respectively.
The region with the largest difference in literacy between men and women is Africa, where 71.6% of males are literate whereas only slightly over half of the females are. Although Asia also shows an important gap between genders, it is not as noticeable as Africa’s. The rest of the regions have a quite equal literacy rate between genders, their gap does not reach 1%.
Overall 82.2% of the evaluated population is literate with a similar number for each gender. The regions who have a higher than 90% literacy rate are the Americas, Europe and Oceania. Meanwhile, Africa and Asia are both below 75%.