Literacy and education in Chile : 1940-1970 cohorts

The evolution of human capital has always been a complex matter of study since it lacks of an absolute definition and also because of the limited data available, more so in developing countries. Nevertheless, literacy is one of its determinants that has a relatively better historic measurement due to population censuses. This thesis studies the evolution of literacy in Chile by an age-period-cohort analysis approach, using data of censuses from 1907 to 2002, capturing cohorts born as early as the 1840 decade to the cohort born in the decade of 1970. The methodology used overcomes the fact that historically the criteria to categorize some individual as illiterate has changed, constructing a correction in order to standardize the results and making them comparable. The evolution of literacy reflects the development of the Chilean educational system, its coverage and quality due to the efforts made mostly by the State throughout this long period. Starting from roughly a 40 percent of literates in the 1907 census, to the numbers seen nowadays, where more than 97 percent of the population of the latest cohorts is able to read and write, Chile has converged with developed countries.

Grantor dc:publisher

Universidad de Chile

Year dc:date.issued

2017

Author dc:creator

• Steinsapir Carr-Rollit, Mendel

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Núñez Errázuriz, Javier

• Alfabetización (Educación)--Chile
• Educación--Aspectos económicos--Chile

Statement dc:rights

• Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Chile

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/cl/

Language dc:language.iso

en

Repository record dc:identifier.uri

https://repositorio.uchile.cl/handle/2250/143393

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repositorio.uchile.cl:2250/143393