Barro-Lee Educational Attainment Dataset

Welcome to the Barro-Lee Website!

To download the Barro-Lee Educational Attainment Data from 1950 to 2010, visit the Data download page. Data by 5-year age group and for ’15 years and over’ and ’25 years and over’ for cross-country can be easily retrieved through the Data download page

Visit the About Dataset page, for a list of variables, countries in the updated dataset, data sources, a brief description of estimation methodology, and a brief history about the Barro-Lee Dataset.

Please cite our data as follows: Barro, Robert and Jong-Wha Lee, 2013, “A New Data Set of Educational Attainment in the World, 1950-2010.” Journal of Development Economics, vol 104, pp.184-198.

2010 07 July Update
2010 12 Nov. Update
2011 04 Sept. Update: The new version (1.2) of data set now available!
2012 02 Oct. Update: The Appendix Notes on data sources available.
2013 09 April Update: The new version (1.3) of data set now available!
2014 30 June Update: The new version (2.0) of data set now available!
2014 30 Aug. Update: Correction of estimates for Finland in 2005 and 2010.
2016 4 Feb. Update: Correction of estimates for China.
2018 4 June Update: Correction of estimates for 10 countries.

2021 September Update: Barro-Lee Estimates of Educational Attainment for the Population Aged 15-64 from 1950 to 2015

Barro-Lee Data (1950-2015)

Data sets on long-run enrollment ratios and educational attainment are now available.

Data sets on test score and quantity-based and quality-adjusted human capital are now available.

For the copyrights of all the images used in this site, click here.

Dataset Last Updated: 2021 September

New Long-term Data Sets: 2016 July

New Educational Quality Data Sets: 2024 May