Spain

Educational attainment

Spain 1900–2010, population 25 years and older

Population by age, sex and education

Spain 1900–2010

Main Findings

In 1900, only 0.1 % of the Spanish population older than 25 years had received at least lower secondary education. This proportion increased to 9.5% until 1950 and to 73.6% until 2010. By then, about 27.3% of the population aged 25 years or older finished a post-secondary education while 26.4% had primary education or less as their highest educational attainment. Mean years of schooling of the population 25 years or older increased from 1.2 years in 1900 to 3.1 years in 1950 and to 9.1 years in 2010.

Gender and Age

In Spain, gender differences in educational attainment have been persistent and have been only slowly diminishing during the 20th century. In 1900, 0.2% of the men aged 25 years and older had at least lower secondary education, compared to 0.0% of the women. By 1950 about 23.4% of the men and 15.6% of the women aged 30 to 34 years had achieved at least lower secondary education while for instance this share was only 1.7% and 0.6% for the population aged 65–69. Although completed lower secondary education became universal for women by 2005 (91.8%), Spanish men have not yet attained universality. Since 1995, there has been an inverse gender gap in higher education, with larger proportions of women completing post-secondary education than men. In 2010, about 48.6% of women in the 30–34 age group had post-secondary educational attainment, compared to 36.4% of men. 

About the Data

The EDU20C estimates of the population of Spain by age, sex and education are based on several census datasets dating back to 1900. Spanish censuses provide information on highest educational attainment in decennial intervals for the time since 1981. For the period before 1981, the EDU20C reconstruction relies on literacy data for 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940, 1950 and 1970. For Spain, all 6 education categories (aggregated to 4 before 1950) are available in the reconstruction model.

Challenges

The definition of literacy varies across the censuses. In the years 1900 to 1930, the illiteracy category includes persons who are not able to read as well as persons who are able to read, but not write. In the years 1940, 1950 and 1960 no further definition of illiterate is stated. For Spain it was necessary to extend the open-ended age group (95+ years) existing life tables by using a logistic extrapolation of nqx, Lx and ax to get life tables up to the open-ended age group 100+ years. Additionally it was necessary to generate life tables for missing data-points by interpolating/extrapolating life expectancies at birth by sex. The model fits a logistic function to existing life expectancies at birth, given the values of upper and lower asymptotes. Based on these estimated life expectancies we use a function that interpolates the logarithms of the probabilities of dying (nqx) from two life tables to generate a comprehensive set of life tables for the entire reconstruction period. Both R functions are in their methodological core based on the Population Analysis System (PAS) Excel templates E0LGST and INTPLTF/INTPLTM. Additionally, some historical source data on the population structure were only available for insufficient large open-ended age groups (e.g. 75+ years from 1900 to 1950), what required an age structure extension to 100+ years based on Lx information from the life tables. Furthermore, it was necessary to interpolate the intercensal data-points for population by age and sex using a linear interpolation function.

Source Data

For Spain the major source of data on population by age, sex and educational attainment in the 20th century originates from the digitised archive of the Spanish National Statistical Office/INE. For the EDU20C reconstruction, we also used information on mortality extracted from the life tables available in the Human Mortality Database (HMD) and Human Life-Table Database (HLD).