Argentina vs Chile: Who Studied More? 🇦🇷🇨🇱
How long did adults go to school in Argentina and Chile? Average years of schooling of adults (25+), 1950-2026.
Argentina: 5.1 years (1950) → 8.1 (1990) → 11.2 (2023) → 11.4 (2026, projection) → 12.3 (2050, projection) → 13.7 (2100, projection)
Chile: 4.5 years (1950) → 8.4 (1990) → 11.4 (2023) → 11.7 (2026, projection) → 12.9 (2050, projection) → 14.2 (2100, projection)
What the number means: 7 years = the average adult spent 7 years in school - a bit more than primary school. 12 years is about the same as finishing secondary (high) school, 16 years a university degree.
The average moves slowly, because it includes grandparents who went to school 60 years ago. When children go to school for longer, the average of all adults follows decades later.
Average years of schooling = the number of years adults aged 25 and over have spent in formal education, on average (UNDP). Each person's highest completed level is turned into years - never went to school = 0, finished primary school = about 6, finished secondary school = about 12, a bachelor's degree = about 16 - and the average is taken over all adults. It counts years in school, not what was learned.
Data: average years of schooling (adults 25+, also women and men): UNDP Human Development Report 2025 for 1990-2023 (smoothed with a 9-year local trend to remove one-year jumps from survey changes); 1950-1989 from the Wittgenstein Centre reconstruction, joined smoothly onto the UNDP level; 2024-2100: the change projected by the Wittgenstein Centre (SSP2, 'middle of the road') added to the last UNDP value (labelled 'projection'). Literacy: UNESCO Institute for Statistics (national censuses and surveys) via Our World in Data; after the last survey of a country, the trend of its recent surveys is continued to 2026 (at most 0.8 points a year, labelled 'estimate'); from 1980 on a 5-year average smooths jumps between surveys. Education levels: Wittgenstein Centre Human Capital Data Explorer v3 (2024), estimates to 2020, SSP2 projection after that. Full list of sources and methods in sources_education.txt.
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