The number of the illiterates in North Macedonia decreases, but the gender gap in the category same as two decades ago

фото: на Pixabay

The number of illiterate people in North Macedonia is 18,897, show the numbers from the third set of the 2021 census data that was published by the State Statistical Office (SSO) at the start of this month. According to the census that was carried out last year, 1.2% of the population is illiterate. What is especially alarming is that among the illiterates more than two-thirds, or over 70%, are women.

Compared to the previous census that was carried out in 2002, the percentage of the illiterate people out of the total population has decreased. In 2002, 63,562 people were registered as illiterate i.e. over 3% of the population was illiterate. And also then, the gender gap in was evident as it is today, two decades later. At the time, 3/4 or over 76% of the illiterate population were women.

On the other hand, women are dominating the numbers of the literate population in the Republic of North Macedonia. Over 95% of the population is literate i.e. 1,461,295 people out of whom 739,561 are women. More than half of the literate population are women.

According to the highest degree of education acquired, the total population aged 15 and above is dominated by the people with secondary education, i.e. 44.1% of the total population. The data shows that 27.8% of the population has primary education only, while 17.3% of the population has higher education. 4.1% of the population haven’t finished their primary education while 1.5% are without any education.

2% of the population have finished  master’s studies, 0.4% have Ph.Ds, while 3% have unknown professional qualifications.