Literacy rate can be described as the percentage of a certain age group in the population who can write and read. The ability to understand simple arithmetic and short, simple statement on everyday life are used to measure literacy. However, depending on the composition of a country’s population, there are differences in literacy rates depending on race, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, and gender, among others. This paper discusses the literacy rate by race and ethnicity in Mexico. There has been no official census data to capture literacy level in Mexico; thus, I will use the results of a comprehensive survey done by the Project on Ethnicity and Race in Latina in 2010 to identify the literacy rates in Mexico. The only available data on literacy rate by racial and ethnicity in Mexico covers educational attainment, and I will relate the educational attainment to literacy rates in Mexico.
According to the 2017 National Household Survey results by Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics (INEGI), people with dark skin tones have lower education levels than lighter-skinned individuals (INEGI, 2017). Using a colour palette for the first time to identify skin tone, it was found that 10% and 20.2% of the lightest and darkest skin tone, respectively, did not have any education (INEGI, 2017). Compared to lighter skin tones, those who self-identified as darker skin tones lower levels of primary school completion. 28.8% and 29.3% of the darker and lighter skin tones did not complete primary school, respectively, while 23% and 44.4% of the darker and lighter skin tones completed primary school, respectively (INEGI, 2017). As the skin tone becomes darker, there are lower levels of education, with only 25% having a higher level education and 33.9% had lower levels of education. On the other hand, as the skin tone gets lighters, 79.2% reached higher levels of education while 48.1% had upper-middle education level.
Figure 1: Percentage distribution of the population aged 25 to 64 by self-classification of skin colour, according to the level of education (INEGI, 2017).
Reference
INEGI (2017). Presenta INEGI, por vez primera, resultados sobre la movilidad social intergeneracional, Comunicado de prensa núm. 261/17, Ciudad de México: 1-16.
