Literacy of Male Plaintiffs and Male Defendants

The literacy pattern for male plaintiffs and defendants is different from that of female litigants. Both in civil and criminal cases, the differences between literacy levels of male plaintiffs and male defendants are not statistically significant. In civil cases, male defendants tend to be slightly less literate than male plaintiffs (72% vs. 82%); however, this difference does not reach statistical significance.

Literacy of Male Plaintiffs and Male Defendants in Criminal Cases, All Years

Two-sample t-test with equal variances

Variable	Number of Observations	Percent Literate	Standard Error	Standard Deviation	95% Confidence Interval
Male Plaintiffs	91	70.33 %	0.0482	0.4593	0.6076 0.7989
Male Defendants	110	77.27 %	0.0401	0.5090	0.2434 0.6733
Difference		- 6.94 %	.0622		-.1920 .0532

Degrees of freedom: 199

Null Hypothesis: the difference is zero

Alternative Hypothesis: the difference is non zero

t = -1.1168

P > |t| = 0.2654

Literacy of Male Plaintiffs and Male Defendants in Civil Cases, All Years

Two-sample t-test with equal variances

Variable	Number of Observations	Percent Literate	Standard Error	Standard Deviation	95% Confidence Interval
Male Plaintiffs	116	81.9 %	0.0359	0. 3867	0.7478 0.8901
Male Defendants	121	71.9 %	0. 0410	0. 4513	.6378 0.8002
Difference		9.99 %	. 0547		-0.0078 0.2077

Degrees of freedom: 235

Null Hypothesis: the difference is zero

Alternative Hypothesis: the difference is non zero

t = 1.8273

P > |t| = 0.0689

Note: These findings differ from some results cited in Chapter 6 – specifically, from the finding of no difference in literacy between female plaintiffs and female defendants. This is a result of adding cases to the dataset; the result cited in chapter 6 was obtained from an early version of the dataset. Adding cases has changed the picture. In particular, the expanded data offer a more developed view of the courts in wartime. See the discussion of female litigants and defendants in chapter 7 of Russian Peasants Go to Court.