Analysis of Global Literacy and Annual Wages by Nation

Literacy is one of the most important skills for people to improve their lives and participate in society. Literacy allows people to advocate for themselves and gain a stepping stone out of poverty and obtain greater independence in their own education and career. The United Nations advocates for literacy as "a fundamental human right, and the foundation of all education and lifelong learning", as well as noting its importance in accelerating peace and development. This paper aims to analyze the relationship between literacy rates of different countries with their total annual wages paid, to measure the impact of literacy on nations’ development and economic growth through the objective measure of employee wages. This combines two of the UN’s core goals: Goal 4 for quality education and Goal 8 for countries’ economic growth.