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Data for 1990

Mean Years of Schooling, 1990

1990, as UNDP Human Development Report Office’s 2025 release gives it · stored as published, never rewritten

Mean Years of Schooling, 1990 covers 152 countries. United States is highest, at 12.9800; Yemen is lowest, at 0.3231. The middle country reads 5.9718.

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Mean Years of Schooling · Data for 1990

HighestUnited States

12.9800

LowestYemen

0.3231

Shaded by value in five groups of equal size, darkest at the better end.

01Position · derived

The table

Every country and every column of Mean Years of Schooling, 1990, as published. UNDP Human Development Report Office ranks nobody on this measure; the position is derived here by ordering the published values. “=” marks a shared position.

Showing 25 of 152 countries · select a heading to sort

Mean Years of Schooling, 1990: every country, as published by UNDP Human Development Report Office.
derived
1United StatesUSANorthern America12.9800
2NorwayNORNorthern Europe11.7100
3JapanJPNEastern Asia11.6400
4DenmarkDNKNorthern Europe11.4800
5AustraliaAUSAustralia and New Zealand11.2254
6NetherlandsNLDWestern Europe11.1028
7CanadaCANNorthern America10.7487
8SwitzerlandCHEWestern Europe10.5343
9IcelandISLNorthern Europe10.5076
10GermanyDEUWestern Europe10.3636
11LiechtensteinLIEWestern Europe10.2401
12AustriaAUTWestern Europe10.2001
13New ZealandNZLAustralia and New Zealand10.1397
14SamoaWSMPolynesia10.1284
15BahamasBHSCaribbean10.0100
16IsraelISRWestern Asia9.8994
17ArmeniaARMWestern Asia9.7834
18PolandPOLEastern Europe9.6675
19EstoniaESTNorthern Europe9.6589
20RussiaRUSEastern Europe9.6534
21United KingdomGBRNorthern Europe9.6368
22SwedenSWENorthern Europe9.5500
23HungaryHUNEastern Europe9.4800
24BelgiumBELWestern Europe9.4047
25TajikistanTJKCentral Asia9.3030

02In 1990

At either end

The 5 countries at each end of the headline.

Highest

  1. 1United States12.9800
  2. 2Norway11.7100
  3. 3Japan11.6400
  4. 4Denmark11.4800
  5. 5Australia11.2254

Lowest

  1. 152Yemen0.3231
  2. 151Niger0.7282
  3. 150Mali0.8443
  4. 149Afghanistan0.8720
  5. 148Guinea1.3127

A higher value is the better result. The middle country reads 5.9718. “Shared” marks a value another country also holds.

03Caveats

Read before you use

What this edition’s numbers are and are not, worked out from the file itself.

How values are stored

  • One year of the 2025 release

    Every year in this series comes from UNDP Human Development Report Office’s 2025 release, recalculated on one method. It can differ from what was first published for 1990.

  • The position is ours

    UNDP Human Development Report Office publishes values only; the order is this site’s.

  • Nothing missing

    Every one of the 152 countries has every column.

04The files

Download and cite

The table as a file, digit for digit, what this site changed, and a citation for this edition.

Licence in full

What this site changed: Reshaped into one row per country: regional and income-group totals are left out, only the columns listed are kept, each row gets its ISO 3166 code, and some country names are brought to one spelling. No value is recalculated, rescaled or rounded.

Licence: CC BY 3.0 IGO · what it allows, in plain words

Cite this edition

UNDP Human Development Report Office (1990). Mean Years of Schooling, 1990 [data set], describing 1990. As held by Nations Inquiry, https://nationsinquiry.com/datasets/mean-years-schooling/1990

0534 held

Other years

06Questions

Mean Years of Schooling, 1990: questions and answers

Which country has the highest mean years of schooling in Mean Years of Schooling, 1990?

United States, at 12.9800, of the 152 countries in the file.

What year does Mean Years of Schooling, 1990 describe?

1990.

How many countries does Mean Years of Schooling, 1990 cover?

152.

Where can I download Mean Years of Schooling, 1990?

On this page, as a CSV file holding every value exactly as published, or from the publisher’s own site, linked below.

Is Mean Years of Schooling, 1990 the newest?

No. The newest held here is Mean Years of Schooling, 2023.

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