Of the Bains whose literacy was recorded, 79.1% could both read and write, 5% could read but not write, and 15.9% could do neither. Women came out slightly ahead, 80.8% reading and writing against 77% of men. Bear in mind these figures include young children; the census itself only counted people aged nine and over when calculating illiteracy, on the grounds that it was unfair to label a child illiterate before they'd had a chance to learn.