placestats

Active labour market spending vs. Researchers

Fades after adjusting for income

Across 40 countries, Active labour market spending and Researchers rise and fall together at r = +0.52 (on a scale from −1 to +1, where 0 means no link). Comparing only countries with similar income (GDP per person) shrinks it to +0.32, which could easily be chance (q = 0.12, 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.

Comparing countries across the middle half of active labour market spending, 0.224% to 0.733% of GDP, researchers is better by 1,555 per million people at the top of that range than the bottom. Comparing only countries with similar national income, the gap is 773 per million people.

Link before adjusting (r)+0.524p = 0.001 · 40 countries
After adjusting for national income+0.323p = 0.045 · likely range [+0.01, +0.58]
p, allowing for regions0.024standard error 0.076 · 4 regions
Check for luck (q)0.119across 12,497 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.

Active labour market spending · % of GDPlink with income +0.54 · moderate
Researchers · per million peoplelink with income +0.85 · proxy

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

Every country as a dot

Active labour market spending · % of GDP →Researchers · per million people →0.001%1.64%90.29,472Australia: 0.368% of GDP, 4,569 per million peopleAustria: 0.866% of GDP, 6,634 per million peopleBelgium: 0.866% of GDP, 5,990 per million peopleBulgaria: 1.06% of GDP, 2,401 per million peopleCanada: 0.214% of GDP, 5,624 per million peopleSwitzerland: 0.606% of GDP, 6,108 per million peopleChile: 0.134% of GDP, 707 per million peopleColombia: 0.436% of GDP, 90.2 per million peopleCosta Rica: 0.129% of GDP, 508 per million peopleCzechia: 0.288% of GDP, 4,505 per million peopleGermany: 0.562% of GDP, 5,926 per million peopleDenmark: 1.64% of GDP, 8,838 per million peopleSpain: 0.923% of GDP, 3,654 per million peopleEstonia: 0.549% of GDP, 4,800 per million peopleFinland: 0.838% of GDP, 8,315 per million peopleFrance: 0.835% of GDP, 5,369 per million peopleUnited Kingdom: 0.153% of GDP, 4,473 per million peopleGreece: 0.306% of GDP, 5,283 per million peopleCroatia: 0.622% of GDP, 2,440 per million peopleHungary: 0.329% of GDP, 4,567 per million peopleIreland: 1.22% of GDP, 5,753 per million peopleIceland: 0.397% of GDP, 5,953 per million peopleItaly: 0.442% of GDP, 2,855 per million peopleJapan: 0.295% of GDP, 5,609 per million peopleKorea, Rep.: 0.423% of GDP, 9,472 per million peopleLithuania: 0.37% of GDP, 3,704 per million peopleLuxembourg: 0.699% of GDP, 5,359 per million peopleLatvia: 0.138% of GDP, 2,191 per million peopleMexico: 0.001% of GDP, 438 per million peopleNetherlands: 1.51% of GDP, 6,563 per million peopleNorway: 0.377% of GDP, 7,451 per million peopleNew Zealand: 0.269% of GDP, 5,435 per million peoplePoland: 0.523% of GDP, 3,675 per million peoplePortugal: 0.687% of GDP, 5,983 per million peopleRomania: 0.042% of GDP, 1,082 per million peopleSlovak Republic: 0.166% of GDP, 3,507 per million peopleSlovenia: 0.227% of GDP, 5,616 per million peopleSweden: 1.18% of GDP, 8,911 per million peopleTurkiye: 0.014% of GDP, 2,645 per million peopleUnited States: 0.078% of GDP, 4,937 per million peopleBGRCOLCRIDNKKORMEXNLDNORROUSWEUSA

best-fit line line after adjusting

Four ways to measure the link

MethodrpCountries
Standard (Pearson), not adjusted+0.5240.00140
By rank (Spearman), not adjusted+0.5460.00040
Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income+0.3230.04540
By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income+0.2760.08940

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 40 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: +0.202 (a minus sign means it grew).

How solid is it?

Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from +0.239 (without DNK) to +0.387 (without KOR). 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: DNK (-0.084).

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.

nr
Europe & Central Asia30+0.43

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.

nr
Poorest third14+0.34
Middle third13+0.02
Richest third13+0.64

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.

nr
Christians34+0.43

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 = +0.236 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 28years. So a link here can’t come from anything about a country that stays the same, such as its history, geography, institutions or culture.

Within countries over time, there is no link that is clearly more than chance (r = +0.007, comparing each country only with itself over the years, and each year only with the same year elsewhere). Whatever the cross-country picture shows, countries whose active labour market spending moved did not tend to see their researchers move with it.

Across countries (adjusted)+0.323for comparison
Within countries+0.095each country vs itself
…and vs the same year elsewhere+0.007q = 0.947 · 39 countries
Year-on-year changes+0.019q = 0.562

849 country-years (one country in one year), 39 countries, 1996–2023, about 22 years each on average. Share of the variation that happens within countries over time: 31% for Active labour market spending, 23% for Researchers. The margins of error allow for each country appearing many times, and for each year’s value being close to the year before.

Year-to-year changes are a cautious test, not a final answer. Looking only at changes from one year to the next removes each country’s own trends. But it also makes measurement mistakes louder, which pulls the results toward zero. A near-zero result here is weak evidence of no link, not proof.

With one measure years behind the other

0.10−0.1-100+10years Researchers trails Active labour market spending →lag -10: r = 0.015 (n = 528)lag -9: r = 0.041 (n = 567)lag -8: r = 0.053 (n = 600)lag -7: r = 0.068 (n = 633)lag -6: r = 0.054 (n = 669)lag -5: r = 0.001 (n = 700)lag -4: r = 0.034 (n = 732)lag -3: r = -0.053 (n = 759)lag -2: r = -0.001 (n = 790)lag -1: r = -0.041 (n = 820)lag +0: r = 0.007 (n = 849)lag +1: r = -0.018 (n = 876)lag +2: r = -0.026 (n = 899)lag +3: r = -0.009 (n = 893)lag +4: r = -0.006 (n = 882)lag +5: r = -0.016 (n = 875)lag +6: r = -0.003 (n = 865)lag +7: r = -0.001 (n = 835)lag +8: r = -0.008 (n = 799)lag +9: r = -0.020 (n = 771)lag +10: r = -0.051 (n = 740)

Same year (lag 0): +0.007. A peak away from zero does not show which comes first. These series change slowly — this year’s value is close to last year’s. That makes the curve smooth and nearly symmetric, whatever produced the data. Even a sharp peak at one lag (a gap of some years) would not prove that one measure changes the other.

The largest value on this curve (+0.07 at lag -7) is higher than the same-year one by 0.06. That gap is not a finding. It is the largest of 21 closely related estimates, and picking the biggest of many tests always makes it look bigger. That is exactly why nothing on this site is ranked or chosen by lag.

The data


% of GDP
per million people		Years
Denmark DNK1.64%8,8382021, 2023
Netherlands NLD1.51%6,5632021, 2023
Ireland IRL1.22%5,7532021, 2023
Sweden SWE1.18%8,9112021, 2023
Bulgaria BGR1.06%2,4012021, 2023
Spain ESP0.923%3,6542021, 2023
Belgium BEL0.866%5,9902021, 2023
Austria AUT0.866%6,6342021, 2023
Finland FIN0.838%8,3152021, 2023
France FRA0.835%5,3692022, 2023
Luxembourg LUX0.699%5,3592021, 2023
Portugal PRT0.687%5,9832021, 2023
Croatia HRV0.622%2,4402021, 2023
Switzerland CHE0.606%6,1082021, 2023
Germany DEU0.562%5,9262021, 2023

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
World Bank, World Development Indicators

Sources

Active labour market spending

Public spending on active labour market programmes

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

Training, help finding jobs, wage subsidies and jobs created by government: spending on getting people into work rather than supporting them while out of it.

Researchers

Researchers in R&D (per million people)

UNESCO Institute for Statistics · CC BY 4.0 · updated quarterly

Researchers counted as full-time equivalents (two half-time researchers count as one), from national research surveys that many countries run only now and then. So coverage is thin outside the OECD.

How this was computed

Data used: most recent value in 2010-2025; values come from 2010–2024. 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 12,497 pairs at once, using the Benjamini–Hochberg method. Underlying data last updated DYB 2024. How the country data works · explore Active labour market spending and Researchers

This page shows that two measures go together. It does not show that Active labour market spending changes Researchers, or the reverse. These figures also describe countries, not individual people. See the ecological fallacy.

More links with Active labour market spending or Researchers