Across 185 countries, Anaemia in women and Maternal mortality rise and fall together at r = +0.64 (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 = 0.061, 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 maternal mortality, 11 to 149 per 100,000 live births, anaemia in women is worse by 5.81% of women aged 15-49 at the top of that range than the bottom. Comparing only countries with similar national income, the gap is 3.18% of women aged 15-49.
Link before adjusting (r)+0.637p = 2.1e-22 · 185 countries
After adjusting for national income+0.326p = 6.2e-6 · likely range [+0.19, +0.45]
p, allowing for regions0.026standard error 0.111 · 7 regions
Check for luck (q)0.061across 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.
Anaemia in women · % of women aged 15-49link with income -0.67 · high
Maternal mortality · per 100,000 live birthslink with income -0.85 · proxy
Both of these rise and fall closely with national income, so a strong link between them before adjusting was close to certain. Read the adjusted figure, not the first one.
“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
+0.637
2.1e-22
185
By rank (Spearman), not adjusted
+0.633
4.5e-22
185
Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income
+0.326
6.2e-6
185
By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income
+0.169
0.022
185
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 185 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: +0.310 (a minus sign means it grew).
How solid is it?
Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from +0.310 (without BEN) to +0.348 (without NGA). 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: NGA (+0.022).
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
29
+0.20
Europe & Central Asia
50
-0.03
Latin America & Caribbean
30
+0.72
Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan
22
+0.38
Sub-Saharan Africa
46
+0.35
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
62
+0.47
Middle third
61
+0.19
Richest third
62
+0.22
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
107
+0.39
Muslims
49
+0.40
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
+0.59
Never a European colony
21
+0.15
Spain
19
+0.54
United Kingdom
63
+0.22
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 = +0.233 after dropping 18 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 24years. 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 = +0.156, 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 anaemia in women moved did not tend to see their maternal mortality move with it.
Across countries (adjusted)+0.326for comparison
Within countries+0.238each country vs itself
…and vs the same year elsewhere+0.156q = 0.152 · 192 countries
Year-on-year changes+0.043q = 0.433
Read with care.
Almost all of this indicator's variation is between countries, not within them, so the within-country estimate rests on a small part of the data.
4,608 country-years (one country in one year), 192 countries, 2000–2023, about 24 years each on average. Share of the variation that happens within countries over time: 10% for Anaemia in women, 3% for Maternal mortality. 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
Same year (lag 0): +0.156. 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 (+0.24 at lag +8) is higher than the same-year one by 0.08. 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 women aged 15-49
per 100,000 live births
Years
Gabon GAB
59.9%
233
2023
Mali MLI
56.5%
367
2023
Mauritania MRT
54.5%
381
2023
India IND
53.7%
80
2023
Cote d'Ivoire CIV
51.4%
359
2023
Benin BEN
50%
518
2023
Niger NER
47.1%
350
2023
Mozambique MOZ
47%
99
2023
Congo, Rep. COG
46.7%
241
2023
Chad TCD
46.5%
748
2023
Pakistan PAK
46.5%
155
2023
Somalia, Fed. Rep. SOM
46.2%
563
2023
Gambia, The GMB
46.1%
354
2023
Haiti HTI
45.9%
328
2023
Guinea-Bissau GNB
45.7%
505
2023
World Bank, World Development Indicators World Bank, World Development Indicators
Maternal mortality ratio, modelled estimate (per 100,000 live births)
WHO and the UN Maternal Mortality Estimation Inter-Agency Group · CC BY 4.0 · updated quarterly
Estimated with a model, like stunting, and for the same reason. Deaths in childbirth are rare in small countries with weak death records, so the agencies estimate rather than count.
How this was computed
Data used: most recent value in 2010-2025; values come from 2023. 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 Anaemia in women and Maternal mortality
This page shows that two measures go together. It does not show that Anaemia in women changes Maternal mortality, or the reverse. These figures also describe countries, not individual people. See the ecological fallacy.
More links with Anaemia in women or Maternal mortality