Review of European Studies; Vol. 9, No. 1; 2017 ISSN 1918-7173 E-ISSN 1918-7181 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education 120 The Ecuadorian Amazon: A Data Analysis of Social and Educational Characteristics of the Population Gina Valdivieso 1 , Efstathios Stefos 2 & Ruth Lalama 3 1 Faculty of Psychology, Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador, Quito, Ecuador 2 National University of Education (UNAE), Azogues, Ecuador 3 Independent Consultant Psychologist and Educational Psychologist, Quito, Ecuador Correspondence: Efstathios Stefos, National University of Education (UNAE), Azogues, Cañar, Parroquia Javier Loyola (sector Chuquipata), Ecuador. Tel: 593-7-370-1200. E-mail: estefos@aegean.gr Received: October 9, 2016 Accepted: October 17, 2016 Online Published: January 5, 2017 doi:10.5539/res.v9n1p120 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/res.v9n1p120 Abstract The present study describes the social and educational characteristics of the Ecuadorian Amazon population. For this purpose, the data obtained from the National Survey of Employment, Unemployment and Underemployment of 2014 was used in this research. A descriptive statistical analysis presents the frequency, the percentages and the graphs of the variables related to the area in which people live, gender, age, ethnic self-identification, language spoken, marital status and level of instruction. Other variables are the use of computer and internet, place of birth, reason why they live in the Amazon region, type of activity or inactivity, how do they feel in their jobs, and groups of occupation. Also, a factorial analysis was used to show the main and most important criteria of differentiation and the the clusters of people with similar characteristics. Keywords: Ecuadorian Amazon, social and educational characteristics, data analysis 1. Introduction Ecuador, Latin-American country, in South America, has four natural regions: Coast, Andean region, insular region and Amazon region. The Amazon region corresponds to the 45% of the Ecuadorian territory but according to the Census of 2010 its population corresponds to 5.11% of the total population of the country (INEC, 2010; Matamoros, 2007). The Amazon region is geographically divided into two subregions, the highlands and the lowlands, extends from the mountain range of Andes into the basin of Amazon and includes unspoiled pristine lands, cloud forests of the Andes and tropical rainforests of the lowlands. The Ecuadorian Amazon is still an extremely biodiverse region in spite of environmental degradation linked to oil development. The indigenous populations of Amazon region maintain their traditional life and some of them remain isolated deep in the Amazon forests. The climate is humid and very warm with frequent heavy rains especially in the lower elevations. The interest in describing the social and educational characteristics of the Ecuadorian Amazon population, in terms of kind of activity and well-being, as well as the educational instruction, is due to the importance of the region in the social and economic development of Ecuador. The results of this analysis will describe the profile of people living in Ecuadorian Amazon and enable the possibility to design plans for the improvement of their life (Stefos et al., 2016). 2. Methodology This research makes a description of the characteristics of a sample of 22843 people of the population of the Amazon region who participated in the National Survey of Employment, Unemployment and Underemployment (INEC, 2014). A descriptive analysis and a statistical multidimensional analysis were realized in order to present the frequencies and percentages of the variables related with the social and educational characteristics, the