• Barometer 2020 The year of the boom

Two years after the pandemic and the confinement of March 2020, the surprising growth in reading habits in Spain seems to be a consolidated fact.

According to the

Barometer of Reading Habits and Buying Books in Spain 2021

, prepared by the Federation of Publishers Guilds of Spain (FGEE) in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture and Sports,

64.4% of Spaniards read books as a form of leisure during the last year

.

52.7% did so at least weekly.

In the 2020 Barometer, presented a year ago, those percentages were 64.0% and 52.7%, respectively.

In 2012, the percentage of weekly readers was 47.2%, 15 points less than now.

According to the publishers, that small year-on-year increase is a success in a year in which book alternatives returned to normal after the confinement.

Those readers who rediscovered the book in confinement have stayed

.

Who are they?

Breaking down the figures reveals patterns that have been known for years: women read more than men (69% of female readers compared to 59% of men) and the best rates are found in the northern half of Spain.

Madrid (73.5% of readers);

The Basque Country (68.2%), Navarra (68.1%) and Catalonia (66.7%) are the communities with the most readers.

Castilla-La Mancha 59.8%), the one with the worst data.

Among the age groups, the best results are found among children between 14 and 19 years old (74.8% of the population reading in leisure time).

And then, the obvious: people with a university education read much more (82.1% of annual readers) than those who stayed in primary education (37.1%).

The Minister of Culture, Miquel Iceta, has presented the

Barometer

together with the general director of the Book,

María José Gálvez

.

In his speech, Iceta described the data as "very good", although he recalled that there is still a "too high" percentage of people who never read.

"It seems easier for those who already read to read more than those who don't read to join in the reading."

Conforms to The Trust Project criteria

Know more

  • literature

LiteratureLuisgé Martín: "There is right-wing puritanism, the usual one, and there is a new left-wing puritanism"

LiteratureFernando Marías, writer of cinephile intrigues and moving intimacies, dies

LiteratureThe age of anger, the novel on the bedside table of the triple crime of Elche

See links of interest

  • Last News

  • Pablo Casado PP crisis

  • Ukraine Russia

  • Work calendar 2022

  • How to do

  • The reading

  • Chelsea - Lille

  • Villarreal-Juventus