placestats

Basic water access vs. Youth not in work or study

Holds up after adjusting for income

Across 173 countries, Basic water access and Youth not in work or study rise and fall together at r = -0.32 (on a scale from −1 to +1, where 0 means no link). Comparing only countries with similar income (GDP per person) flips the link to +0.22 (q = 0.039, allowing for the many pairs tested). The first figure pointed the other way only as richer and poorer countries differ. Caution: correlation moves sharply once outliers are trimmed.

Comparing countries across the middle half of basic water access, 87.1% to 99.6% of population, youth not in work or study is better by 3.49% of 15 to 24 year olds at the top of that range than the bottom. Comparing only countries with similar national income, the gap reverses, to 3.12% of 15 to 24 year olds the other way.

Link before adjusting (r)-0.323p = 1.5e-5 · 173 countries
After adjusting for national income+0.217p = 0.004 · likely range [+0.07, +0.36]
p, allowing for regions0.003standard error 0.046 · 7 regions
Check for luck (q)0.039across 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.

Basic water access · % of populationlink with income +0.85 · proxy
Youth not in work or study · % of 15 to 24 year oldslink with income -0.63 · high

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

Basic water access · % of population →Youth not in work or study · % of 15 to 24 year olds →35.7%100%3.14%65.7%Aruba: 96.7% of population, 16.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsAfghanistan: 80.8% of population, 43.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsAngola: 68% of population, 24.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsAlbania: 95.1% of population, 21% of 15 to 24 year oldsUnited Arab Emirates: 100% of population, 8.92% of 15 to 24 year oldsArgentina: 99% of population, 15.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsArmenia: 99.9% of population, 20.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsAntigua and Barbuda: 98.9% of population, 20.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsAustralia: 100% of population, 8.53% of 15 to 24 year oldsAustria: 100% of population, 13.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsAzerbaijan: 97.7% of population, 9.64% of 15 to 24 year oldsBurundi: 65.9% of population, 11.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsBelgium: 100% of population, 8.15% of 15 to 24 year oldsBenin: 69.6% of population, 14.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsBurkina Faso: 50% of population, 24.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsBangladesh: 98.8% of population, 15.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsBulgaria: 99.2% of population, 10.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsBosnia and Herzegovina: 96.1% of population, 14.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsBelarus: 99.9% of population, 65.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsBelize: 94.8% of population, 24.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsBermuda: 100% of population, 6.79% of 15 to 24 year oldsBolivia: 93.4% of population, 8.02% of 15 to 24 year oldsBrazil: 100% of population, 18.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsBarbados: 99.2% of population, 29% of 15 to 24 year oldsBrunei Darussalam: 100% of population, 19% of 15 to 24 year oldsBhutan: 99.5% of population, 15.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsBotswana: 91.8% of population, 38% of 15 to 24 year oldsCanada: 98.3% of population, 13.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsSwitzerland: 100% of population, 6.99% of 15 to 24 year oldsChile: 99.1% of population, 13.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsCote d'Ivoire: 77.2% of population, 18.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsCameroon: 71.4% of population, 23.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsCongo, Dem. Rep.: 35.7% of population, 31.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsColombia: 97.1% of population, 22% of 15 to 24 year oldsComoros: 85.1% of population, 21.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsCabo Verde: 92.3% of population, 28% of 15 to 24 year oldsCosta Rica: 99.8% of population, 19.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsCuracao: 100% of population, 17.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsCyprus: 99.7% of population, 13.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsCzechia: 98.7% of population, 4.62% of 15 to 24 year oldsGermany: 100% of population, 7.58% of 15 to 24 year oldsDjibouti: 79.7% of population, 44% of 15 to 24 year oldsDenmark: 100% of population, 6.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsDominican Republic: 97.5% of population, 24.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsAlgeria: 92.4% of population, 20.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsEcuador: 92.1% of population, 17.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsEgypt, Arab Rep.: 97.3% of population, 23.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsSpain: 99.9% of population, 10.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsEstonia: 100% of population, 10.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsEthiopia: 55.6% of population, 17.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsFinland: 100% of population, 8.28% of 15 to 24 year oldsFiji: 95.6% of population, 20.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsFrance: 100% of population, 12.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsMicronesia, Fed. Sts.: 89.9% of population, 28.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsGabon: 88.6% of population, 20.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsUnited Kingdom: 100% of population, 14.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsGeorgia: 97.3% of population, 14.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsGhana: 89.9% of population, 23.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsGuinea: 74.2% of population, 34.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsGambia, The: 87.1% of population, 36.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsGuinea-Bissau: 61.8% of population, 13.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsGreece: 100% of population, 10.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsGrenada: 95.6% of population, 20.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsGuatemala: 93.2% of population, 24% of 15 to 24 year oldsGuyana: 95.6% of population, 44.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsHong Kong SAR, China: 100% of population, 5.95% of 15 to 24 year oldsHonduras: 95.7% of population, 29% of 15 to 24 year oldsCroatia: 99.9% of population, 8.08% of 15 to 24 year oldsHaiti: 73.3% of population, 21.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsHungary: 100% of population, 9.98% of 15 to 24 year oldsIndonesia: 89% of population, 21.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsIndia: 95.7% of population, 25.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsIreland: 97.1% of population, 5.67% of 15 to 24 year oldsIran, Islamic Rep.: 97.9% of population, 24.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsIraq: 98.4% of population, 36.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsIceland: 100% of population, 3.98% of 15 to 24 year oldsIsrael: 100% of population, 15.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsItaly: 99.9% of population, 12% of 15 to 24 year oldsJamaica: 87.6% of population, 19.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsJordan: 99.3% of population, 29.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsJapan: 99.2% of population, 3.14% of 15 to 24 year oldsKazakhstan: 97.8% of population, 9.49% of 15 to 24 year oldsKenya: 65.6% of population, 18.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsKyrgyz Republic: 94.9% of population, 19.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsCambodia: 82.8% of population, 6.32% of 15 to 24 year oldsKiribati: 79.1% of population, 35.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsLao PDR: 95.9% of population, 22.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsLebanon: 92.6% of population, 23.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsLiberia: 78.8% of population, 39.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsSt. Lucia: 98.1% of population, 25.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsSri Lanka: 90.2% of population, 17.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsLesotho: 78.1% of population, 38% of 15 to 24 year oldsLithuania: 99.9% of population, 14.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsLuxembourg: 100% of population, 10.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsLatvia: 98.8% of population, 9.89% of 15 to 24 year oldsMacao SAR, China: 100% of population, 4.96% of 15 to 24 year oldsMorocco: 92.2% of population, 35.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsMoldova: 92.7% of population, 9.05% of 15 to 24 year oldsMadagascar: 55.3% of population, 24.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsMaldives: 99.8% of population, 26.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsMexico: 99.5% of population, 16.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsMarshall Islands: 87.4% of population, 40% of 15 to 24 year oldsNorth Macedonia: 98.2% of population, 19.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsMali: 86.4% of population, 30.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsMalta: 100% of population, 7.84% of 15 to 24 year oldsMyanmar: 85.7% of population, 15% of 15 to 24 year oldsMontenegro: 99.3% of population, 14.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsMongolia: 86.1% of population, 9.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsMozambique: 66.6% of population, 19.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsMauritania: 77.3% of population, 44.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsMauritius: 99.9% of population, 13.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsMalawi: 73.1% of population, 39.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsMalaysia: 97.9% of population, 10.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsNamibia: 86.5% of population, 31.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsNiger: 53.4% of population, 15.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsNigeria: 82.2% of population, 11.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsNetherlands: 100% of population, 4.14% of 15 to 24 year oldsNorway: 100% of population, 5.82% of 15 to 24 year oldsNepal: 93.6% of population, 34.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsNaoero: 97.8% of population, 50.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsNew Zealand: 100% of population, 12.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsOman: 92.7% of population, 25.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsPakistan: 90.7% of population, 28.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsPanama: 95.3% of population, 15.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsPeru: 95.6% of population, 22.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsPhilippines: 95.9% of population, 12.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsPalau: 99.5% of population, 11.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsPapua New Guinea: 53.3% of population, 27.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsPoland: 90.1% of population, 10.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsPuerto Rico (US): 100% of population, 19.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsPortugal: 99.3% of population, 7.02% of 15 to 24 year oldsParaguay: 99.6% of population, 18.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsWest Bank and Gaza: 98.8% of population, 25.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsRomania: 100% of population, 17% of 15 to 24 year oldsRussian Federation: 96.9% of population, 6.68% of 15 to 24 year oldsRwanda: 61.4% of population, 15.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsSaudi Arabia: 99% of population, 16.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsSudan: 64.9% of population, 46.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsSenegal: 88% of population, 35.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsSingapore: 100% of population, 6.46% of 15 to 24 year oldsSolomon Islands: 71.6% of population, 7.04% of 15 to 24 year oldsSierra Leone: 68.1% of population, 25.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsEl Salvador: 91.6% of population, 20.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsSomalia, Fed. Rep.: 75.3% of population, 51% of 15 to 24 year oldsSerbia: 95.4% of population, 12.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsSao Tome and Principe: 78% of population, 43.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsSuriname: 98% of population, 18.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsSlovak Republic: 99.8% of population, 8.75% of 15 to 24 year oldsSlovenia: 99.6% of population, 7.13% of 15 to 24 year oldsSweden: 99.8% of population, 5.58% of 15 to 24 year oldsEswatini: 80.4% of population, 36.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsSeychelles: 97.7% of population, 16.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsChad: 52.2% of population, 42.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsTogo: 64.8% of population, 13% of 15 to 24 year oldsThailand: 100% of population, 12.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsTajikistan: 89.2% of population, 41.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsTimor-Leste: 87.3% of population, 29.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsTonga: 98.9% of population, 25.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsTrinidad and Tobago: 99.3% of population, 15.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsTunisia: 96.7% of population, 22.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsTurkiye: 96% of population, 22.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsTuvalu: 98.7% of population, 34.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsTanzania: 64.6% of population, 12.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsUganda: 63% of population, 13.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsUkraine: 93.5% of population, 16.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsUruguay: 99.6% of population, 14% of 15 to 24 year oldsUnited States: 100% of population, 11.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsViet Nam: 98.8% of population, 10.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsVanuatu: 87.1% of population, 29.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsSamoa: 99.4% of population, 30.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsSouth Africa: 90.2% of population, 34.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsZambia: 73.4% of population, 26.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsZimbabwe: 67.2% of population, 36% of 15 to 24 year oldsBLRCODETHGUYISLJPNNERNLDNRUSDNTCD

best-fit line line after adjusting

Four ways to measure the link

MethodrpCountries
Standard (Pearson), not adjusted-0.3231.5e-5173
By rank (Spearman), not adjusted-0.5192.5e-13173
Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income+0.2170.004173
By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income+0.0590.442173

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 173 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: +0.106 (a minus sign means it grew).

How solid is it?

Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from +0.200 (without NER) to +0.253 (without GUY). 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: GUY (+0.036).

Fragile: this link may not hold up.
  • correlation moves sharply once outliers are trimmed
  • 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.

nr
East Asia & Pacific29+0.24
Europe & Central Asia46+0.10
Latin America & Caribbean29-0.23
Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan17-0.51
Sub-Saharan Africa43+0.30

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 third58+0.26
Middle third57+0.02
Richest third58-0.35

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
Christians105+0.18
Muslims42+0.18

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.

nr
France22+0.00
Never a European colony17+0.42
Spain18-0.04
United Kingdom55+0.19

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 = +0.020 after dropping 22 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 25years. 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 = +0.036, 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 basic water access moved did not tend to see their youth not in work or study move with it.

Across countries (adjusted)+0.217for comparison
Within countries-0.106each country vs itself
…and vs the same year elsewhere+0.036q = 0.630 · 120 countries
Year-on-year changes-0.020q = 0.603
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.

1,995 country-years (one country in one year), 120 countries, 2000–2024, about 17 years each on average. Share of the variation that happens within countries over time: 6% for Basic water access, 21% for Youth not in work or study. 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

0.20−0.2-100+10years Youth not in work or study trails Basic water access →lag -10: r = -0.060 (n = 1,180)lag -9: r = -0.043 (n = 1,255)lag -8: r = -0.049 (n = 1,345)lag -7: r = -0.023 (n = 1,431)lag -6: r = -0.014 (n = 1,502)lag -5: r = 0.011 (n = 1,593)lag -4: r = 0.003 (n = 1,691)lag -3: r = 0.007 (n = 1,769)lag -2: r = 0.015 (n = 1,865)lag -1: r = 0.022 (n = 1,941)lag +0: r = 0.036 (n = 1,995)lag +1: r = 0.046 (n = 1,990)lag +2: r = 0.046 (n = 1,940)lag +3: r = 0.061 (n = 1,893)lag +4: r = 0.073 (n = 1,842)lag +5: r = 0.086 (n = 1,789)lag +6: r = 0.097 (n = 1,726)lag +7: r = 0.108 (n = 1,657)lag +8: r = 0.123 (n = 1,587)lag +9: r = 0.107 (n = 1,518)lag +10: r = 0.113 (n = 1,430)

Same year (lag 0): +0.036. 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 (+0.12 at lag +8) is higher than the same-year one by 0.09. 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 population
% of 15 to 24 year olds		Years
Thailand THA100%12.4%2024, 2025
Singapore SGP100%6.46%2024, 2025
Puerto Rico (US) PRI100%19.5%2024, 2020
New Zealand NZL100%12.8%2024
Norway NOR100%5.82%2024
Netherlands NLD100%4.14%2024
Malta MLT100%7.84%2024
Macao SAR, China MAC100%4.96%2024, 2016
Luxembourg LUX100%10.2%2024
Iceland ISL100%3.98%2024
Hungary HUN100%9.98%2024
Hong Kong SAR, China HKG100%5.95%2024, 2025
Greece GRC100%10.4%2024, 2025
Germany DEU100%7.58%2024
Curacao CUW100%17.5%2024, 2020

World Bank, World Development Indicators
World Bank, World Development Indicators

Sources

Basic water access

People using at least basic drinking water services (% of population)

World Bank · CC BY 4.0 · updated quarterly

Youth not in work or study

Share of youth not in education, employment or training, total (% of youth population)

International Labour Organization · CC BY 4.0 · updated quarterly

From labour force surveys, so yearly for about a hundred countries and occasional elsewhere.

How this was computed

Data used: most recent value in 2010-2025; values come from 2010–2025. 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 Basic water access and Youth not in work or study

This page shows that two measures go together. It does not show that Basic water access changes Youth not in work or study, or the reverse. These figures also describe countries, not individual people. See the ecological fallacy.

More links with Basic water access or Youth not in work or study