Across 169 countries, Alcohol consumption and Governance score rise and fall together at r = +0.50 (on a scale from −1 to +1, where 0 means no link). Comparing only countries with similar income (GDP per person) shrinks it to +0.33, which could easily be chance (q = 0.31, 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: direction is not consistent across regions.
Comparing countries across the middle half of alcohol consumption, 1.81 to 8.71 litres per adult per year, governance score is better by 0.773 typical gaps at the top of that range than the bottom. Comparing only countries with similar national income, the gap is 0.51 typical gaps.
Link before adjusting (r)+0.503p = 3.2e-12 · 169 countries
After adjusting for national income+0.333p = 1.1e-5 · likely range [+0.19, +0.46]
p, allowing for regions0.128standard error 0.189 · 7 regions
Check for luck (q)0.312across 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.
Alcohol consumption · litres per adult per yearlink with income +0.51 · moderate
Governance score · typical gaps (standard deviations)link with income +0.53 · moderate
“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
+0.503
3.2e-12
169
By rank (Spearman), not adjusted
+0.523
3.1e-13
169
Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income
+0.333
1.1e-5
169
By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income
+0.341
6.3e-6
169
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 169 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: +0.170 (a minus sign means it grew).
How solid is it?
Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from +0.310 (without SAU) to +0.361 (without BLR). 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: BLR (+0.028).
Fragile: this link may not hold up.
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
20
-0.09
Europe & Central Asia
49
+0.32
Latin America & Caribbean
25
+0.19
Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan
21
+0.76
Sub-Saharan Africa
46
-0.09
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
57
-0.10
Middle third
56
+0.20
Richest third
56
+0.68
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
101
-0.14
Muslims
47
+0.04
By last european coloniser
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
France
25
-0.29
Never a European colony
21
+0.53
Spain
19
-0.23
United Kingdom
51
+0.52
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 = +0.333 after dropping 0 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
litres per adult per year
typical gaps (standard deviations)
Years
Romania ROU
16.8
0.749
2020, 2025
Georgia GEO
14.4
0.0179
2020, 2025
Latvia LVA
12.9
1.22
2020, 2025
Lithuania LTU
12.1
1.14
2020, 2025
Czechia CZE
12
1.31
2020, 2025
Germany DEU
11.8
1.36
2020, 2025
Poland POL
11.7
0.996
2020, 2025
Belarus BLR
11.6
-1.26
2020, 2025
Bulgaria BGR
11.6
0.74
2020, 2025
Austria AUT
11.5
1.33
2020, 2025
Uganda UGA
11.3
-0.646
2020, 2025
Burkina Faso BFA
11.3
-0.784
2020, 2025
Moldova MDA
11.1
0.5
2020, 2025
Tanzania TZA
10.9
-0.315
2020, 2025
Luxembourg LUX
10.8
1.38
2020, 2025
World Bank, World Development Indicators fh; un_sdg; vdem; wdi; wgi
Total alcohol consumption per capita (litres of pure alcohol, age 15+)
World Health Organization Global Health Observatory · CC BY 4.0 · updated quarterly
Recorded drinking plus an estimate of unrecorded drinking, per person aged fifteen and over. Ends in 2020.
No "better" direction is set, and the reason is the strongest fact about this measure on the site. Of everything here, it is what most separates countries by their largest religion. Alcohol is forbidden in Islam, so a low figure in a Muslim-majority country is religious practice showing up in a health statistic. Calling that end "best" would make this site score religious practice, which it refuses to do everywhere else. Every measure of attendance, prayer, marriage and belief here has no "better" direction for exactly that reason. This is the same fact arriving through a different column.
The World Health Organization is right that alcohol carries a real burden of disease, and the site does not dispute it. It declines to turn that into a score for a country, when the thing being scored would largely be how many of its people are Muslim.
PlaceStats · via PlaceStats · Derived work; each member keeps its own licence · updated recomputed with the panel
The average of 19 measures from 5 publishers. Each measure is first put on a common scale: 0 is the average country in an average year, and 1 is a typical gap between countries (a standard deviation). Each is turned so that higher is better. Measures are averaged within each publisher first, so a publisher with many measures does not count for more. Members: Civil liberties (FH), Political rights (FH), Pre-trial detainee share, Civil society participation, Political corruption, Electoral democracy, Freedom of association, Freedom of expression, Free and fair elections, Liberal democracy, Participatory democracy, Political civil liberties, Birth registration, Control of corruption, Government effectiveness, Political stability, Rule of law, Regulatory quality, Voice and accountability.
How this was computed
Data used: most recent value in 2010-2025; values come from 2011–2025. 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 7 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 Alcohol consumption and Governance score
This page shows that two measures go together. It does not show that Alcohol consumption changes Governance score, or the reverse. These figures also describe countries, not individual people. See the ecological fallacy.
More links with Alcohol consumption or Governance score