The percentage of adults age 25 or older who reported having read a novel, short story, play, or poem in the past 12 months decreased between 1982 and 2002.

This indicator examines trends in literary reading (novels, short stories, plays, and poems) from 1982 to 2002 among adults age 25 or older and the relationship between reading habits and educational attainment. The percentage of the population that reads literature regularly is an important measure of adult literacy.

The percentage of adults age 25 or older who reported reading any literature in the past 12 months declined between 1982 and 2002, from 56 to 47 percent, with most of the decrease occurring between 1992 and 2002 (see table 15-1). White adults were more likely than Black and Hispanic adults to report literary reading from 1982 to 2002. Between the two years, the Black literary reading rate was about the same, while the White and Hispanic reading rates decreased. Females were more likely to report literary reading than males, and females had a smaller decline in reading than males from 1982 to 2002. Adults ages 25–44 had a larger decline in the literary reading rate than older adults during this period.

A positive relationship exists between reading and educational attainment: the more education a person has, the more likely that person is to report having read literature in the past 12 months. For example, in 2002, 19 percent of adults age 25 or older with less than a high school diploma reported that they had read literature, compared with 67 percent of those with a bachelor’s degree or higher (see table 15-2). Other factors such as family income, sex, and race/ethnicity are also related to literary reading. The positive relationship between educational attainment and literary reading persists even when one considers differences in reading rates associated with sex, family income, or race/ethnicity. For example, 13 percent of males and 25 percent of females with less than a high school diploma reported reading literature in 2002, compared with 58 and 76 percent, respectively, of their counterparts with a bachelor’s degree or higher.