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Key Figures on Cultural Participation in the European Union, by M. Skaliotis, EUROSTAT

A very interesting document showing the huge variability within the European Union of reading as a cultural activity. It is interesting that the north/south (beer/wine, cold/warm) divide is evident in these statistics as well. The highest levels of reading on virtually all measures are in northwestern Europe. Some interesting nuggets:

As measured by the percentage of the population not having read a book in the past year, the lowest levels of reading are: Portugal (67% not having read a book in the past year) Belgium (58%), Spain (54%) and Greece (53%). Across the European Union (EU), 42% of the population had not read a book in the prior year.

The highest rates of reading (as measured by any books read in the prior year) were clocked in by Sweden (72%), Finland (66%), the UK (63%) and Denmark (55%). Surprisingly to me, Germany and France were only at 40%.

Overall book reading rate in Europe (all books - pleasure, work, study) was 45% in 2001. The comparable figure for the US was 57%.

A similar gender imbalance (women reading more than men) is prevalent in Europe as it is in the US. Europe's ratio of Female to Male reading being 51% to 40% as measured by books read for pleasure (i.e. not for work or study). In the US the comparable figure is 55% to 38%.

Newspaper reading appears to still be thriving in Europe with 46% of the population reading a newspaper every day. While book and newspaper reading is generally closely correlated in the statistics (for example top scoring book reader Sweden is also the top newspaper reading country with 78% of the population reading a paper every day) there are a couple of exceptions. Interestingly, a low book reading country like Germany (40%) has 65% of the population reading a newspaper everyday.