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This study makes the first systematic attempt to trace the long-term development of Latin American numeracy, a phenomenon of great interest to economic historians in that it serves as an accurate gauge of human capital development. In order to approximate basic numeracy we use age-heaping techniques. We find that Latin America was on a path of convergence with western Europe during the early eighteenth century. During the early nineteenth century, not only did numeracy development stagnate in some Latin American countries but differences among some of them actually increased. While numeracy rates in Argentina, Uruguay, and to a lesser extent Brazil, along with Europe, underwent a significant increase in the late nineteenth century, they declined in Mexico, Ecuador, and Colombia. By performing a regression analysis, we find that, even when we control for investment in education, mass immigration contributed to human capital formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Outlines the development of gender disparities in education for 28 Latin American and Caribbean countries, 1880-1949, using age heaping techniques. The authors explore in particular the hypothesis of a U-shaped development of women's education during economic development, that is, a decrease in gender equality at lower levels of overall education and increasing gender equality at higher levels. For the downward sloping part, one finds some evidence, although this part is relatively small. The upward sloping part is strongly confirmed. Non-Hispanic Caribbean countries had substantially lower gender inequality rates than Latin American countries.

The article discusses the relatively high standard of living in the era between the Middle Ages and the turn of the 18th century as owing in large part to educational attainment, which itself is problematic to measure from data. The authors propose a statistical method to determine numeracy, rather that literacy based on signed documents. Distortions in reporting and rounding of ages ("age heaping") are explained as arising from educational level, infant protein deprivation, and exposure to Bible-reading in Protestantism. Early Modern census data from Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, are examined in an exemplary case study.