As income per person rises, literacy rate rises.
1a. Income per person: annual income per person. Take total GDP/population. Measured in USD.
Literacy rate, adult total: % of people 15+ years old who can read and write a simple statement on their everyday life. Measured in % of population.
1b. Income per person is one of the main indicators of economic development, because if the average citizen of a state has more money, then their standard of living will go up, reflected in many developmental indicators such as the one I chose: literacy rate. When people get paid more they don't have to work as often which frees up time for education, and also allows them to pay for it. Literacy rate is a value used to determine the level of education in a country, which is one of the indicator used in the UN Human Development Index. The higher the education, the higher the HDI.
2a. Throughout time, most of the world's countries rise in literacy rates and income per person. Regionally, the countries with the highest income per person and literacy rates over time are in Europe and Central Asia, followed by America. The lowest are in the Sub-Saharan African and South Asian countries. East Asian and Pacific countries are slightly lower, and countries in the Middle Eastern and South African regions are spread out in the middle. Lately, a number of countries in the latter regions are catching up to the others, but that's only a few of the majority. In the 2011 data, there is one particular outlier of the higher income-literacy countries that stands out: Papua New Guinea. It has far lower literacy and income per person than the other East Asian and Pacific countries. It dwells among the lower Sub-Saharan African countries. Also, over time, Zimbabwe increased it's literacy rates without having an increased income per person, which is odd.
2b. Globally, income per person is increasing over time because of many reasons, for example: with more efficient ways of producing goods companies can afford to pay workers more, development of labor unions and minimum wage laws, more labor forces in countries are moving into the service sector (which pays more), etc. Literacy has been increasing because of this economic development. When people get paid more they don't have to work as often which frees up time for education, and also allows them to pay for it. Regionally, Europe and Central Asia have the highest incomes and literacy because they developed first, which allowed them to colonize other countries that weren't developed, and take advantage of them, which helped them to develop faster. They had the first industrial revolution, which allowed for higher wages and more efficient manufacturing. As they developed, incomes became higher and people were able to get an education, which leads to literacy. The other countries with high stats have those because of their histories that allowed them to industrialize fairly quickly. The countries with low stats are less economically developed because they were previous colonies of Europe. Many Sub-Saharan African and South Asian countries were colonized by Europeans. This led to them being dependent on European powers (dependency theory). When they wanted to become independent, they had to find new leadership (which caused civil wars) and after that in order to give the country a start they had to take out structural adjustment loans. It's extremely hard to pay them off with interest, so poverty hits those countries, they don't develop as fast, the're stuck with primary economic activities which don't pay much, and the'res no time for education. Now, HDCs have control over LDC's (neocolonialism). It's hard to get out of this situation (structuralist theory).
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