A child and an adult are lying on the floor. The adult is reading a book.

In 2022, according to EU statistics on income and living conditions (EU-SILC), 52.8% of the EU population aged 16 years or over reported reading books in the past 12 months.

The youngest group, aged 16-29, read more (60.1%) compared with those aged 30 to 54 (53.5%), 55 to 64 (52.6%) and 65 years and older (47.2%). 

More women in the EU read books (60.5%) than men (44.5%). The same pattern was observed when looking at the number of books read: 28.8% of women and 24.8% of men read fewer than 5 books, 14.3% of women and 9.8% of men read 5-9 books, while 17.4% of women and 9.9% of men read 10 or more books.

Book reading habits in the EU over past 12 months, % of people aged 16 and over, by age and by sex, 2022. Infographic. See link to full dataset below.


Source dataset: ilc_scp27

Share of people reading books highest in Luxembourg, Denmark and Estonia

Among EU countries, Luxembourg reported the highest share of people who had read books in the 12 months prior to the survey (75.2%), followed by Denmark (72.1%) and Estonia (70.7%). 

In contrast, in Romania, only 29.5% of people had read books in the 12 months prior to the survey, 33.1% in Cyprus and 35.4% in Italy.

Book reading habits over past 12 months, % of people aged 16 and over, 2022. Bar chart. See link to full dataset below.

Source dataset: ilc_scp27

This news article marks international Book Lovers Day, celebrated on 9 August 2024.

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Methodological notes

  • Data at EU level is estimated. 
  • Germany: no data available.
  • The EU-SILC data used in this article considers the number of books that the respondent has read, including e-books or audio books but excluding podcasts, during the last 12 months. All types of books are to be counted (historical, scientific, poetry, novels, etc.) except schoolbooks or manuals for work.

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