Sixteen per cent are non-readers. The highest rates of literacy are in the Western provinces, the lowest rate in the East. Literacy rates are considerably lower among seniors. Rates for men and women born in Canada are almost identical. Limited literacy is twice as high for francophones as for anglophones.
Limited literacy is higher among the poor, prison inmates and people with disabilities.
The causes of limited literacy are broad-based and interrelated. Children of parents with reading problems are more likely to have those problems themselves. One-third of children of parents with less than eight years of education go no further than that level themselves. Research suggests that focus must be given to the linguistic development of children early on. And poverty is both a primary cause and a symptom of lower reading levels.