Too many young people who don't know (and don't want) to read? Not among the girls

PISA OECD 2018: 15-year-olds demonstrate better reading skills

Numbers, those just listed, also confirmed by the recent OECD-PISA 2018 Report (the triennial survey that assesses the level of knowledge and skills achieved by 15-year-old students). Because the greatest confidence with girls' books is seen when it comes to understanding a written text (one of the skills required by the OECD-PISA questionnaire). Adolescents, in the reading test, exceed the 25-point male colleagues and among the top performers (those who reach the highest ratings) the females are present in a much greater degree. While it is mainly males who are part of that 1 in 4 that shows they do not understand what they are reading (they are 28%, against 19% among girls).

Istat: women read more than men, at any age

But it is the entire female universe that shows more affection than males to books. The gap between men and women is wide. Also in 2018 (Istat data), the percentage of readers was 46.2%; that of the readers of 34.7%. A distance that has been punctual for over thirty years. Furthermore, among women, the share of female readers falls below 50% only from the age of 55; while among the readers no age group is more than half. The only ones to try to revive the category's fortunes are the boys between 25 and 34, who in the last twelve months have seen the ranks of readers increase by over 4%. The same applies if we focus on the so-called "strong readers", those that browse at least twelve texts a year (one a month). In Italy only 14.3% of readers do it on average: women are 15.3%; men 12.9%.

The social context also plays its part, with the usual North-South divide

However, among the variables that strongly affect the propensity to read, there are also the geographical area of ​​origin and the level of education. The habit of picking up a book is much more widespread in the northern regions, where about 49% of people have read at least one text in 2018. In the South, on the contrary, the figure drops to 26.7% (with a negative peak of 24.9% in Sicily). Just as, among graduates, readers are 73.6% while among graduates it drops to 46.7%. Finally, the family context is also decisive: among children under the age of 18, between those who have a mother and father readers reads 74.9%; among those who have both parents "non-readers" only 36.2% do so.