A fifth of online shoppers buy with smartphones

"Payment processing firm WoldPay released its Global Online Shopping Report, which surveyed 15 countries on their e-commerce behaviours in order to uncover differences between nations. It found that on average 22% of disposable income was spent online internationally.
Furthermore, in general the percentage of income spent was higher in emerging markets. Taking the lead is India, where respondents spend 36% of their disposable income on purchasing products or services online.
In China this figure fell slightly to 31% of income spent on e-commerce, and Brazilians were clocked a as dedicating 27% of their earnings in this fashion.
The survey found the spending amounts in mature markets are the highest in the UK, where people spent a quarter of their disposable income on online goods and services, whereas peoples in Finland spend only 13%. Spain and France allocate 17% and 19% of their income respectively.
The proliferation of smartphones has opened up different channels for shoppers to make their purchase, another factor that is proven to vary across the markets.
The survey found that just under a fifth of all online shoppers globally use their smartphone to make a purchase, with people in China using this method the most, (46%), and France coming in last with this metric at 7%."

Source:  Research by WorldPay, reported by UTalkMarketing, 27th April 2012

Tumblr gets 15bn page views a month

"At the Digitial Life Design (DLD) conference in Munich, Germany, Tumblr founder and CEO David Karp announced that the blogging site now reaches 120 million people and 15 billion pageviews every month.
According to The Next Web, Karp credited the site’s sociability for its growth. The average Tumblr blog is re-blogged nine times, said the founder, and the content is distributed through RSS, Facebook, Twitter and other social networking platforms.
“There’s the spreadable future of social media,”  quipped journalist and professor Jeff Jarvis on Twitter.
That adds up to 560 million people who have viewed content on Tumblr to date. There are 249 million visitors in the U.S. alone, comprising 45% of Tumblr’s audience. Next in line are Brazil with 49 million visits and the UK with 34 million visits."

Source:  SocialTimes, 23rd January 2012

2/3 of college students would rather have an internet connection than a car

Click to enlarge

Source:  Taken from Cisco's World Technology Report, September 2011
Press release here
Methodology - 1,400 college students aged 18-23 & 1400 young professionals under 30.
The survey was translated into local languages and fielded in 14 countries to gain approximately
100 completes for each subgroup in each country
Countries: United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Germany, Italy,
Russia, India, China, Japan, Australia

6% of shopping searches in Brazil come from mobile devices

"Across Latin America, smartphones and mobile broadband subscribers are growing at a high rate and have in turn driven the mobile strategies of wireless operators. Today, Brazil is No. 5 in the world in number of Internet users and is second to China in growth of 3G subscribers year-over-year.
“The mobile Web is exploding in Brazil, helped with the increase of prepaid data, which is cheaper than going to cyber cafes and also more private,” noted Google’s head of mobile advertising for Latam, Peter Fernandez, during the Mobile Marketing Association Forum in São Paulo.
People are changing their lifestyle and how they consume information. Companies, as well as advertising agencies, carriers and applications developers have to understand that and move forward to provide these new customers what they demand.
“Now, 6% of shopping searches in Brazil are coming from mobile. It’s a 700% growth compared to the past year, and eight times faster than desktops,” noted Fernandez."

Source:  RCRWireless, 20th October 2011

18% of internet users access solely through a mobile connection

"Mobile is increasingly the primary platform for internet access, according to today’s Global Consumer Survey (GCS) report from MEF, the global community for mobile content and commerce.
Based on research conducted among over 8,000 respondents in nine countries across five continents, the MEF GCS found that 72% access the mobile internet on a daily basis with 18% no longer using fixed line internet access whatsoever. In each individual market, the number of consumers accessing the mobile internet daily is higher than the number accessing fixed-line internet."

Source:  Research by the Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF)'s Global Consumer Survey, reported in a press release, 12th October 2011

See an extract here

The markets surveyed were:  Brazil, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Qatar, Singapore, South Africa, UK & US

5 of the top 10 markets where most time is spent on social networking sites are in Latin America

"Latin Americans are strongly engaged with social networking. Half of the top 10 worldwide markets ranked by time spent on social networking sites are in Latin America, with Argentina leading the region at 10 hours per month in June 2011.
The Latin American social networking audience is nearly equal in its composition of males and females, but females account for a larger share of social networking time spent (53.6 percent) compared to males (46.4 percent). This trend was most significant in Brazil where females accounted for 58.7 percent of all social networking time spent.
People age 15-24 demonstrated the strongest engagement on social networks, accounting for nearly half (48.0 percent) of all time spent in the category. This trend was most significant in Venezuela where visitors age 15-24 accounted for 3 of every 5 social networking minutes (58.2 percent).
Facebook.com strongly led the social networking market in Latin America, reaching more than 91 million visitors. Windows Live Profile ranked #2 with more than 35.5 million visitors in the region. Orkut held the #3 spot with 34.4 million visitors, largely driven by the site’s popularity in Brazil, while Twitter.com ranked #4 with 24.3 million visitors.
Five of the top 10 markets ranked by Facebook.com reach are in Latin America. Facebook reached 90.9 percent of all online users in Chile, ranking as the most penetrated market in Latin America.
In Brazil, Orkut ranked as the most-visited social networking destination, reaching 35.7 million visitors, an increase of 20 percent from June 2010. Facebook.com, which is the second largest social networking site in Brazil, witnessed strong growth increasing 192 percent to 24.5 million visitors.
Venezuela is the only country in Latin America in which Twitter.com rises to second place in the social networking ranking. One in four online users in Venezuela visited Twitter.com in June (26.5 percent reach).
Recently launched Google+ reached 28 million visitors worldwide in the first 33 days of its public existence (June 29, 2011 to July 31, 2011). Brazil ranked as the sixth largest market for the site globally, contributing 793,923 visitors."
Source:  Press release from comScore, 20th September 2011

Social network Badoo has 120m members

"It's a 120-million-member social network that's adding over 300,000 users a day, with more than 4.3 million daily photo and video uploads, and seven billion monthly page views. It has Facebook's fastest-growing app, with 570,000 new daily users, making it the third-biggest app of all after FarmVille and CityVille. Hugely profitable, it's forecast to generate hundreds of millions of dollars this year, and is being aggressively courted by venture-capital firms valuing it in the billions. And it's run from London by a secretive Russian serial entrepreneur who has steadfastly refused to be interviewed or photographed. Until now.
[...]
Still barely registering in Britain or the US, the free-to-use network -- on the web and via smartphones -- is a mass phenomenon in Brazil (14.1 million members), Mexico (nine million), France (8.2 million), Spain (6.5 million) and Italy (six million). Relying on word-of-mouth rather than any marketing spend, it has cracked the internet's eternal conundrum: how to persuade users to pay hard cash in a world drowning in free digital services and content, by charging members each time they want to boost their visibility to others searching for a date."

Source:  Wired, 6th April 2011

Orkut has 52m members

"Over 52 million active users worldwide
Over 34 billion pageviews each month
Average user visits the site 26 times each month, spending over 8 minutes per visit
Source: comScore Media Metrics, 2010, as reported by Orkut
Also:  site demographics - 51% of the membership is from Brazil, 20% from India, 18% from the US.
Also:
"Photos and scraps continue to be strong features, and over the last month, we’ve hit a few records. On Christmas Eve, users shared 93 milion scraps, an all-time high, and on January 3rd after New Years, users viewed 1.6 billion photos, which is almost 19,000 photo views a second. For context, YouTube crossed the 1 billion video view mark in October 2009, and crossed the 2 billion mark in May of last year."

Source:  Orkut blog, 26th January 2011 (on the occasion of their 7th birthday)

The online & offline habits of teen and tween girls

"Media Habits & Relationships
'Being with friends' (in the real world) is what girls across all age groups (66%) enjoy doing, followed by 'shopping' and 'listening to music'. And when it comes to shortened attention spans, the research shows that a third (30%) of Gen Z girls regularly watch TV shows online for longer than 10 minutes.
Play & Games
Gaming has become a commonplace activity among a relatively new 'casual gamers' user group, but has the market now reached saturation? Not where girls are concerned. Half (49%) of older teens say they never spend time with portable gaming devices or console games. Gaming is more entrenched in younger girls lives, with 35% of 12 and under personally owning a portable gaming device. Social gaming habits, such as playing Farmville, CItyVille, Cafe World and Sims regularly, are prevalent, although vary depending on country: Brazil and Poland top the list (41% and 40%) for girls playing MMOGs (massive multiplayer online games) with Germany and France the lowest (21% and 22%). In the UK, 34% of girls play regularly and in the US the figure is 29%.
Spending Power
Girls like to shop - scoring it as their second favorite activity - but does their lack of plastic hamper their spending money online? It appears not. One in five girls aged 12 and under regularly visit online shopping sites, rising to one in four once they become teenagers. The majority of teenage girls are still buying products on the high street or at a shopping center rather than online, but this shopping medium is far from off limits - 13% of Generation Z girls regularly purchase products online regardless of age.
    Highlights:

    Under 12s
        - 64% use a gaming console
        - Only 35% put listening to music in their top 5 activities
        - More than 60% own a mobile phone
        - More than 60% never read a newspaper
        - Prefer instant messenger to social networks

    13-15 year olds
        - More than 45% say listening to music is one of their favorite
          activities
        - Almost 80% own a mobile
        - YouTube, followed by Facebook, are their favorite social networks
        - 25% regularly visit online shopping sites although only 13%
          Purchase products
        - Begin using mobile web and mobile social networks

    16-18 year olds
        - Most interested in music - nearly 50% list it in their top 5
          activities
        - Nearly 80% own a mobile
        - Are most likely to read newspapers
        - Are least likely to use a gaming console
        - The heaviest media users
        - More likely to use social networks rather than instant messages"
Source:  Press release from Stardoll and Carat, 27th January 2011
About the research
The research was conducted within the virtual world of Stardoll (http://www.stardoll.com), and the total number of respondents was 11,000. The study was conducted in August 2010 using Questback's advance survey tool EasyResearch. Respondents were recruited randomly on Stardoll.com by sending the survey to Stardoll members within the 11 markets (Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, UK and US).

The Asia Pacific region account for 70% of the world's virtual goods sales, down from 81% in 2007

"In 2007, the Asia/Pacific region accounted for more than 81% of the total worldwide virtual goods revenue. In 2010, North and South America regions accounted for nearly 20% of the revenue, with Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) accounting for 10%. The remaining 70% of worldwide virtual goods revenue remains in the Asia/Pacific region, says In-Stat (www.in-stat.com)."

Source:  Press release from InStat, 25th January 2011

Bloggers, by country

Click to enlarge

"It should not be much of a surprise that the most bloggers (29.2%) are located in the U.S. In fact, there are more than four times as many bloggers in the U.S. as there are in the second most populated country within the blogosphere - the U.K., which is home to 6.75% of bloggers.
Japan accounts for the third-most bloggers (4.9%), followed by Brazil (4.2%), Canada (3.9%), Germany (3.3%), Italy (3.2%), Spain (3.1%), France (2.9%) and Russia (2.3%)."
Source:  Inside Blog Demographics, Sysomos, June 2010

Age distribution by wealth quintile in household survey data

Household survey data may not contain precise ages for all household members. Age heaping, an unusually high share of ages ending in 0 and 5, is especially common in survey data from developing countries. Age heaping can be caused by uncertainty of survey respondents about their own age or the age of other household members, intentional misreporting, or errors during data collection and processing. Errors in age data can affect the estimation of education indicators from household survey data because these indicators are often calculated for specific age groups. Examples include the youth literacy rate and school attendance rates for the population of primary and secondary school age.

An article on age distribution in household survey data on this site demonstrated age heaping in survey data from India, Nigeria and to a lesser extent Indonesia. Data for Brazil showed little to no age heaping. To investigate whether age heaping is more common among certain segments of the population, the survey samples can be disaggregated by household wealth quintile. For this purpose, the households in the sample are first ranked by wealth, from poorest to richest. The population is then divided into five equally sized groups with 20 percent each of all household members in the sample.

Figure 1 shows the age distribution by single year of age and wealth quintile in data from Brazil. The data were collected in 2006 with a Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios (PNAD) or National Household Sample Survey. No preference for ages ending in 0 and 5 could be observed for the entire survey sample combined and disaggregation does not change the result. The age distribution in each quintile is smooth, with no peaks at ages ending in 0 and 5. The only obvious difference between the population in the different quintiles is that poorer families tend to have more children, indicated by a peak in the age distribution in the younger age groups.

Figure 1: Age distribution in household survey data by single-year age group and household wealth quintile, Brazil

Data source: Brazil PNAD 2006.

Figure 2 shows the age distribution in Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data from India. The data were collected in 2005-06. In contrast to Brazil, there is considerable age heaping in the Indian data. However, peaks around ages ending in 0 and 5 are more pronounced among poorer households. Increasing household wealth is associated with a decrease in age heaping.

Figure 2: Age distribution in household survey data by single-year age group and household wealth quintile, India

Data source: India DHS 2005-06.

Data from Indonesia, collected with a Demographic and Health Survey in 2007, are shown in Figure 3. At the aggregate level, the survey data from Indonesia exhibit little age heaping. However, disaggregation by wealth quintile reveals that reported ages ending in 0 and 5 are more common among poorer households.

Figure 3: Age distribution in household survey data by single-year age group and household wealth quintile, Indonesia

Data source: Indonesia DHS 2007.

Finally, Figure 4 displays data from a 2008 Demographic and Health Survey in Nigeria. Similar to India, there is a high percentage of ages ending in 0 and 5 in the combined survey sample. The disaggregated data show that age heaping occurs more frequently among poorer households but also exists in the richest wealth quintile.

Figure 4: Age distribution in household survey data by single-year age group and household wealth quintile, Nigeria

Data source: Nigeria DHS 2008.

Disaggregation of household survey data from Brazil, India, Indonesia and Nigeria has shown that age heaping occurs more frequently in data collected from poorer households. Wealthier households may have more access to birth registration and therefore may be able to verify their ages with birth certificates. Wealthier households are also likely to be smaller and survey respondents would therefore have to know and report the ages of fewer persons than respondents from larger households.

Age heaping in survey data reduces the accuracy of education indicators that are calculated for single years of age, for example for all children of primary school entrance or graduation age. However, indicator estimates for larger age groups, for example all children of primary or secondary school age, are less likely to be affected by errors in age data.

Related articles

• Age distribution in household survey data
• Educational attainment in Brazil since 1920
• School attendance in Brazil
• Educational attainment in India, 1950-2000
• Primary school completion in India, 1950-2000
• Age and level of education in Nigeria
• Adult literacy in Nigeria
• Youth literacy rates
• Official school ages: primary, secondary, and compulsory education

External links

• Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS)
• Brazil National Household Sample Survey 2006
• Education glossary by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics

Friedrich Huebler, 30 April 2010, Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2010/04/age.html

Twitter users by Country & City, January 2010

The US is the most active country, and London is the most active city:



Source: Exploring the Use of Twitter Around the World, Sysomos, January 2010

Age distribution in household survey data

Indicators in the field of education statistics, such as those defined in the education glossary of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, are typically calculated for specific age groups. For example, the youth literacy rate is for the population age 15 to 24 years, the adult literacy rate for the population age 15 and over, and the net attendance rates for primary and secondary education are for the population of primary and secondary school age, respectively. The net intake rate is an example for an indicator that is calculated for a single year of age, the official start age of primary school.

For a correct calculation of education indicators it is necessary to have precise age data. In the case of data collected with population censuses or household surveys this means that the ages recorded for each household member should be without error. However, census or survey data sometimes exhibit the phenomenon of age heaping, usually on ages ending in 0 and 5. Such heaping or digit preference occurs when survey respondents don't know their own age or the ages of other household members, or when ages are intentionally misreported.

The presence of age heaping can be tested with indices of age preference such as Whipple's index. Heaping can also be detected through visual inspection of the age distribution in household survey data. Figures 1 and 2 summarize the age distribution in survey data from Brazil, India, Indonesia and Nigeria. The data from Brazil were collected with a Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios or National Household Sample Survey in 2006. The data for the other three countries are from Demographic and Health Surveys conducted between 2005 and 2008.

Figure 1 shows the share of single years of age in the total survey sample. A preference for ages ending in 0 and 5 is strikingly obvious in the data from India and Nigeria. In the data from Indonesia, age heaping is also present, but to a lesser extent than for India and Nigeria. Lastly, the graph for Brazil is relatively smooth, indicating a near absence of age heaping.

Figure 1: Age distribution in survey data by single-year age group

Data source: Brazil PNAD 2006, India DHS 2005-06, Indonesia DHS 2007, Nigeria DHS 2008.

In Figure 2, single ages are combined in five-year age groups, from 0-4 years and 5-9 years to 90-94 years and 95 years and over. Compared to Figure 1, the distribution lines are much smoother, including for India and Nigeria. We can conclude that age heaping is problematic for education indicators that are calculated for single years, for example all children of primary school entrance age, but less so for indicators that are calculated for a larger age group, for example all children of primary or secondary school age or all persons over 15 years of age.

Figure 2: Age distribution in survey data by five-year age group

Data source: Brazil PNAD 2006, India DHS 2005-06, Indonesia DHS 2007, Nigeria DHS 2008.

Related articles

• Age distribution by wealth quintile in household survey data
• Educational attainment in Brazil since 1920
• School attendance in Brazil
• Educational attainment in India, 1950-2000
• Primary school completion in India, 1950-2000
• Age and level of education in Nigeria
• Adult literacy in Nigeria
• Youth literacy rates
• Adult literacy in 2007
• Official school ages: primary, secondary, and compulsory education

External links

• Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS)
• Brazil National Household Sample Survey 2006
• Whipple's index entry in Wikipedia
• Education glossary by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics
• Net intake rate definition in UIS education glossary
• UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)

Friedrich Huebler, 28 February 2010 (edited 30 September 2010), Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2010/02/age.html

Piracy has led to a decline in the local music releases in France, Spain and Brazil

"In France, there has been a striking fall in the number of local repertoire albums released in recent years. In the first half of 2009, 107 Frenchrepertoire albums were released, 60 per cent down on the 271 in the same period of 2003. French artist signings have also slumped by 60 per cent, from 91 in the first half of 2002 to 35 in the same period of 2009. Overall investment in marketing and promotion by the French music industry fell nine per cent in the first six months of 2009. It is estimated that 25 per cent of the French internet population currently download music illegally from P2P networks or other sources on a monthly basis (Jupiter Research, 2009).
In Spain, a culture of state-tolerated apathy towards illegal file-sharing has contributed to a dramatic slump in the music market. Spain has the worst online piracy problem of any major market in Europe. Today, P2P usage in Spain, at 32 per cent of internet users, is more than double the European rate of 15 per cent (Jupiter Research, 2009). The Spanish legitimate music market is now only one third of its size in 2001 and fell by around 17 per cent in 2009 alone. Local artist album sales in the Top 50 declined by 65 per cent between 2004 and 2009.
In Brazil, music sales fell by more than 40 per cent between 2005 and 2009, with a disastrous impact on investment in local repertoire. In 2008 there were only 67 full priced local artist album releases by the five biggest music companies in Brazil – just one tenth of the number (625) a decade earlier. This has been particularly damaging in a market where 70 per cent of music consumed is domestic repertoire."
[The report says that these are just illustrative markets, not the only markets where this effect has been seen]
Source: Page 19 of IFPI Digital Music Report 2010

Nokia's Comes With Music service has 107,000 subscribers worldwide

"CWM ACTIVE VOUCHERS– JULY 2009
UK – 32,728 (launch date: Oct 08)
Singapore – 19,318 (Feb 09)
Australia – 23,003 (Mar 09)
Brazil – 10,809 (Apr 09)
Sweden – 1,101 (Apr 09)
Italy – 691 (Apr 09)
Mexico – 16,344 (May 09)
Germany – 2,673 (May 09)
Switzerland – 560 (Jun 09)"
Source: Musically, 16th October 2009

Educational attainment in Brazil since 1920

Brazil is likely to reach the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education by 2015. According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), 94 percent of all children of primary school age (7 to 10 years) were enrolled in primary school in 2005. Data from the 2006 National Household Sample Survey (Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios, PNAD), analyzed in an article on school attendance in Brazil, show that 99 percent of all children between 7 and 10 years were in pre-primary, primary or secondary education.

PNAD data can also be used to demonstrate how the education system in Brazil has expanded over the past decades. The PNAD survey collected information on the highest level of education attended for all persons in the sample. By comparing the highest level of education of persons born in different years it is possible to show the change in school attendance patterns over time. The following graph displays the highest level of education for persons born between 1920 and 2000. Household members born in 2000 were 5 or 6 years old at the time of the survey in 2006.

Highest level of education attended by year of birth, Brazil 1920-2000

Data source: Brazil National Household Sample Survey (PNAD), 2006.

Only 59 percent of all Brazilians born in 1920 ever attended school, and three out of four persons who attended school never went beyond primary education. Primary, secondary and tertiary school attendance rates increased steadily over the following decades. By the 1960s, nine out of ten Brazilians were able to receive a formal education. 91 percent of all persons born in 1960 attended at least primary school, 58 percent in this age group attended at least secondary school, and 14 percent went to a university.

The expansion of the primary education system began to slow down in the 1960s, after it had already reached a high level of coverage, but secondary school attendance rates continued to grow at a rapid pace. Among persons born in 1990, 98 percent attended primary school and 90 percent attended secondary school. Among persons born in 1994, 99 percent attended primary school. The peak value for participation in secondary education is 91 percent for persons born in 1988.

Fewer Brazilians have tertiary education, but almost one fifth of the population born around 1980 had attended a university or other institution of higher education by the time the PNAD survey was conducted in 2006. The peak value for participation in tertiary education is 19 percent for persons born in 1981.

Data sources

• Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), National Household Sample Survey (Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios, PNAD), 2006
• UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), Data Centre, January 2009

Related articles

• School attendance in Brazil
• Educational attainment in India, 1950-2000
• Educational attainment in sub-Saharan Africa
• Trends in primary school enrollment, 1970-2004
• Universal primary education by 2015: A goal out of reach?
• UN Millennium Development Goals Report 2008
• Official MDG targets and indicators

External links

• UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
• MDG 2: Universal primary education

Friedrich Huebler, 24 January 2009, Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2009/01/brazil.html

School attendance in Brazil

Brazil is the largest and most populous country in South America. The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) estimates that the population of Brazil grew to 190 million in 2008. The World Bank ranks Brazil as the world's tenth largest economy with a gross domestic product (GDP) of $1.3 trillion in 2007.

Brazil has achieved high levels of school attendance and literacy. The UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) estimates that 94 percent of all children of primary school age were enrolled in primary school in 2005, the latest year with data. The youth literacy rate, for persons aged 15 to 24 years, was 99 percent in 2007 according to the UIS. Among the adult population aged 15 years and older, 91 percent were literate in 2007. In contrast, in 1980 only 75 percent of the adult population of Brazil could read and write.

The patterns of school attendance in Brazil can be studied in greater detail with data from the 2006 National Household Sample Survey (Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios, PNAD). The survey collected data on current and past school attendance for all household members, regardless of age. For the analysis that follows, the levels of education in the PNAD data were recoded to match the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) of 1997. Five levels of education are identified:

• Pre-primary education
• Primary education
• Secondary education
• Tertiary education
• Adult literacy programs

Adult literacy programs are not part of the ISCED classification but they play an important role in Brazil and are therefore included as a separate group. The graph below illustrates current school attendance by age and level of education for the population aged 0 to 30 years. The number at the top of each bar is the percent of persons of a particular age that are currently in school. For example, 97 percent of all 7-year-olds were in school at the time of the survey; the majority attended primary school but more than 10 percent of all 7-year-olds were still in preschool.

The official school ages in Brazil are indicated along the horizontal axis. The official entrance age for pre-primary education is 4 years, primary education begins at 7 years, and secondary education at 11 years. Education is compulsory for all children aged 7 to 14 years.

Brazil: Current school attendance by age and level of education, 2006

Data source: Brazil National Household Sample Survey (PNAD), 2006.

The PNAD data show that many young children in Brazil attend pre-primary education. Two thirds of all children between 4 and 6 years are in preschool or day care. The laws on compulsory education have the desired effect and almost all children between 7 and 14 years are in fact in school. The attendance rates in this age group range from 94 percent among 14-year-olds to 99 percent among 8- to 11-year-olds. Among children of secondary school age, the attendance rate drops steadily from 99 percent at age 11 to 74 percent at age 17. About 8 percent of 18-year-olds are in tertiary education. University attendance rates reach a peak of 15 percent among 20- to 22-year-olds.

Overage school attendance is relatively common in Brazil and many children older than 10 years are still in primary school. Persons up to and beyond age 30 attend secondary education. These high levels of primary and secondary school attendance among the older population are partly a result of a system of education that offers persons who dropped out of school an opportunity to continue their education later in life. Adult literacy programs reach a relatively small part of the population but they contribute to the high level of literacy in Brazil. About 0.5 to 1 percent of the population between 30 and 75 years participate in programs that teach reading and writing.

Data sources

• Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), National Household Sample Survey (Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios, PNAD), 2006
• Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), population clock, November 2008
• World Bank, quick reference tables, GDP 2007, September 2008
• UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), Data Centre, November 2008

Related articles

• Educational attainment in Brazil since 1920
• Adult literacy in 2007
• Youth literacy rates

External links

• International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED), 1997

Friedrich Huebler, 8 November 2008 (edited 24 January 2009), Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2008/11/brazil.html