Her educational attainment would be under 3 years compared to her husband’s average educational attainment of just under 4. As the benchmark for functional literacy is set in a range between 3 to 5 years of education (UNESCO has adopted the 5-year benchmark in its surveys on this issue), this means the average woman at this time would have limited literacy (Gray, 1969). Fifty years later the equivalent woman would have more than double the educational attainment of her 1950s sister, having spent on average almost 6.5 years in school.