Do Abortion rate (estimate) and PISA science go together across countries?

Across 67 countries the link before adjusting for anything is r = -0.51, on a scale from -1 (opposite) to +1 (in step). A version that uses only each country's rank gives -0.58.

Does the link hold within countries over time, not just across countries?

There are not enough years of data within countries to check this over time.

Does Abortion rate (estimate) cause PISA science?

This analysis cannot answer that. It shows only that the two go together. A link between two country measures, adjusted or not, does not show that either one changes the other. Country figures also say nothing about individual people.

Abortion rate (estimate) vs. PISA science

Fades after adjusting for income

Across 67 countries, Abortion rate (estimate) and PISA science rise and fall together at r = -0.51 (on a scale from −1 to +1, where 0 means no link). Comparing only countries with similar income (GDP per person) shrinks it to -0.14, which could easily be chance (q = 0.61, allowing for the many pairs tested, and allowing for countries in the same region being alike). So the first figure mostly shows richer countries differing from poorer ones, not a link between these two things. Caution: leave-one-out range spans 0.23 in r.

Comparing countries across the middle half of abortion rate (estimate), 10.4 to 28.4 per 1,000 women aged 15-49, pisa science is worse by 33 PISA points at the top of that range than the bottom. Comparing only countries with similar national income, the gap is 6.18 PISA points.

Link before adjusting (r)-0.510p = 1.1e-5 · 67 countries

After adjusting for national income-0.144p = 0.248 · likely range [-0.37, +0.10]

p, allowing for regions0.417standard error 0.153 · 4 regions

Check for luck (q)0.608across 14,952 pairs

How to read these.r runs from −1 (one goes up as the other goes down) to +1 (they rise together), and 0 means no link. Adjusting for national income means comparing countries with the same GDP per person, so differences in wealth can’t explain the link. Income is used in percentage terms, since an extra $1,000 means more to a poor country than to a rich one. p is how likely a link this strong would be if there were really none. Below 0.05 means it is unlikely to be chance. Very small values are written in short form: 1.1e-32 means a decimal point followed by 31 zeros and then 11, so very close to zero. The likely range is where the true figure probably lies, and a range that crosses zero means the link could easily be chance. Countries in the same region tend to resemble each other, so the third figure allows for that, which gives a fairer p. The standard error is the typical size of the error in r. Finally, testing this many pairs means some will look strong by luck alone. A q below 0.05 means this link is unlikely to be one of those.

Abortion rate (estimate) · per 1,000 women aged 15-49link with income -0.50 · moderate

PISA science · PISA pointslink with income +0.78 · high

“Link with income” is how closely each measure tracks GDP per person across countries, from −1 to +1.

Every country as a dot

best-fit line line after adjusting

Four ways to measure the link

Method	r	p	Countries
Standard (Pearson), not adjusted	-0.510	1.1e-5	67
By rank (Spearman), not adjusted	-0.577	3.2e-7	67
Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income	-0.144	0.248	67
By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income	-0.146	0.243	67

The rank version uses only each country’s place in line, from lowest to highest, so a few extreme countries count for less. The adjusted and unadjusted versions use the same 67 countries: those that report both measures and GDP per person. So the gap between them comes from the adjustment, not from a change in which countries are counted. Drop in the size of r after adjusting: +0.366 (a minus sign means it grew).

How solid is it?

Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from -0.286 (without VNM) to -0.057 (without GEO). The bar above shows that range on a scale from −1 to +1, with the solid line at the full result. The single country that moves r most: VNM (-0.142).

Fragile: this link may not hold up.

leave-one-out range spans 0.23 in r
direction is not consistent across regions

Within each region

Countries are not separate, unrelated cases, and neighbors share a lot. A link that holds inside each region is far more believable than one that shows up only when comparing regions.

	n	r
East Asia & Pacific	12	+0.52
Europe & Central Asia	38	-0.27
Latin America & Caribbean	15	+0.05

By income third

If the link shows up only in the richest third of countries, it is a feature of rich countries, not a general pattern.

	n	r
Poorest third	23	+0.09
Middle third	22	-0.37
Richest third	22	+0.01

By largest religious group

Countries grouped by a label they share, such as main religion, rather than by a number. Groups of fewer than twelve countries are not shown. These groups differ in income, region and history all at once. So a gap between them is a place to start asking questions, not an answer.

	n	r
Christians	50	-0.34

By last european coloniser

	n	r
Spain	13	-0.17

Without outliers (countries far outside the middle half of countries on either measure, by more than one and a half times the width of that middle half): r = -0.227 after dropping 2 countries.

Two series, one country

Both measures over the years for one country you pick. The two charts are stacked so they share only the years along the bottom.

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Over time, within countries

Everything above compares countries with each other at one moment. This section compares each country only with itself over 0years. So a link here can’t come from anything about a country that stays the same, such as its history, geography, institutions or culture.

Not enough history inside each country to look at this over time. That needs countries measured for several years in a row, and at least one of these measures is measured too rarely.

The data

	per 1,000 women aged 15-49	PISA points	Years
Georgia GEO	80.3	384	2019, 2022
Viet Nam VNM	64	472	2019, 2022
Trinidad and Tobago TTO	48.3	425	2019, 2015
Kazakhstan KAZ	47	423	2019, 2022
Russian Federation RUS	45.7	478	2019, 2018
Cambodia KHM	45	347	2019, 2022
Peru PER	42.4	408	2019, 2022
Jamaica JAM	38.1	403	2019, 2022
Dominican Republic DOM	36.6	360	2019, 2022
Philippines PHL	36	356	2019, 2022
Chile CHL	35.9	444	2019, 2022
Paraguay PRY	34	368	2019, 2022
Argentina ARG	33.2	406	2019, 2022
Brazil BRA	32.3	403	2019, 2022
Romania ROU	31	428	2019, 2022

Bearak, J. M., Popinchalk, A., Beavin, C. et al. (2022), 'Country-specific estimates of unintended pregnancy and abortion incidence: a global comparative analysis of levels in 2015-2019', BMJ Global Health 7(3), e007151. Guttmacher Institute. Supplementary appendix, tables A3-A5.
OECD databases as named on each indicator: PISA, Social Expenditure Database (SOCX), Income Distribution Database, Development Assistance Committee statistics, Family Database, Government at a Glance, Corporate Tax Statistics, employment and environment statistics

Sources

Abortion rate (estimate)

Abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-49 (model estimate, 2015-2019)

Guttmacher Institute (Bearak et al. 2022, BMJ Global Health) · CC BY-NC 4.0 · updated one edition (2015-2019 estimates, published 2022)

The Guttmacher Institute's estimate of all abortions, legal or not, per 1,000 women aged 15 to 49 (women of childbearing age), averaged over 2015-2019. Where a country has good counts, the estimate stays close to them. Where it does not, including most countries where abortion is banned, it is worked out by a statistical model from surveys, births, birth control use and similar countries. Only 75 of the 166 countries with any data had counts reliable enough to use directly, so for many countries this is an informed estimate with a wide range: Georgia's is 80, but it could be anywhere from 46 to 133. The official count of legal abortions is shown separately. No "better" direction is set.

PISA science

PISA mean science score

OECD · via Our World in Data · CC BY 4.0 (OECD terms and conditions) · updated annual, except the snapshots noted per indicator

How this was computed

Data used: most recent value in 2010-2025; values come from 2015–2022. To adjust for income, each measure is first predicted from GDP per person (in percentage terms, on a log scale) with a straight-line fit. Only what is left over is then compared. This is called a partial correlation. The line is drawn the standard way (ordinary least squares), which picks the line that comes closest to all the countries at once. The error margins allow for countries in the same region resembling each other, using 4 World Bank regions. The q-value corrects for testing all 14,952 pairs at once, using the Benjamini–Hochberg method. Underlying data last updated DYB 2024. How the country data works · explore Abortion rate (estimate) and PISA science

This page shows that two measures go together. It does not show that Abortion rate (estimate) changes PISA science, or the reverse. These figures also describe countries, not individual people. See the ecological fallacy.