placestats

Birth rate vs. Child stunting

Fades after adjusting for income

Across 156 countries, Birth rate and Child stunting rise and fall together at r = +0.75 (on a scale from −1 to +1, where 0 means no link). Comparing only countries with similar income (GDP per person) shrinks it to +0.27, which could easily be chance (q = 0.081, 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 birth rate, 10.6 to 27 per 1,000 people, child stunting is worse by 15.5% of children under 5 at the top of that range than the bottom. Comparing only countries with similar national income, the gap is 6.91% of children under 5.

Link before adjusting (r)+0.747p = 4.5e-29 · 156 countries
After adjusting for national income+0.272p = 0.001 · likely range [+0.12, +0.41]
p, allowing for regions0.012standard error 0.077 · 7 regions
Check for luck (q)0.081across 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.

Birth rate · per 1,000 peoplelink with income -0.85 · proxy
Child stunting · % of children under 5link with income -0.80 · 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

Birth rate · per 1,000 people →Child stunting · % of children under 5 →4.746.21%55.3%Afghanistan: 35 per 1,000 people, 42% of children under 5Angola: 37.2 per 1,000 people, 47.7% of children under 5Albania: 10.1 per 1,000 people, 7.4% of children under 5Argentina: 11.1 per 1,000 people, 10.7% of children under 5Armenia: 11.1 per 1,000 people, 6.2% of children under 5Australia: 10.7 per 1,000 people, 3.1% of children under 5Azerbaijan: 10 per 1,000 people, 6.8% of children under 5Burundi: 33.2 per 1,000 people, 55.3% of children under 5Belgium: 9.2 per 1,000 people, 2.6% of children under 5Benin: 33.4 per 1,000 people, 33.2% of children under 5Burkina Faso: 31.3 per 1,000 people, 19.5% of children under 5Bangladesh: 20 per 1,000 people, 25.1% of children under 5Bulgaria: 8.3 per 1,000 people, 5.5% of children under 5Bahrain: 12 per 1,000 people, 4.6% of children under 5Bosnia and Herzegovina: 7.72 per 1,000 people, 7.9% of children under 5Belarus: 7.03 per 1,000 people, 1.1% of children under 5Belize: 18.1 per 1,000 people, 11.7% of children under 5Bolivia: 21 per 1,000 people, 10.7% of children under 5Brazil: 12.1 per 1,000 people, 8.9% of children under 5Barbados: 11.1 per 1,000 people, 5.8% of children under 5Brunei Darussalam: 13.3 per 1,000 people, 9.9% of children under 5Bhutan: 12.5 per 1,000 people, 17.9% of children under 5Botswana: 24.4 per 1,000 people, 21% of children under 5Central African Republic: 46.2 per 1,000 people, 38.9% of children under 5Chile: 8.72 per 1,000 people, 1.7% of children under 5China: 6.77 per 1,000 people, 4.5% of children under 5Cote d'Ivoire: 31.6 per 1,000 people, 20.3% of children under 5Cameroon: 33.3 per 1,000 people, 27.2% of children under 5Congo, Dem. Rep.: 40.9 per 1,000 people, 44.1% of children under 5Congo, Rep.: 30.4 per 1,000 people, 16.3% of children under 5Colombia: 13.3 per 1,000 people, 11.6% of children under 5Comoros: 28.2 per 1,000 people, 17.4% of children under 5Cabo Verde: 12.2 per 1,000 people, 5.3% of children under 5Costa Rica: 9.99 per 1,000 people, 10.6% of children under 5Czechia: 7.7 per 1,000 people, 2.4% of children under 5Germany: 8.1 per 1,000 people, 2.2% of children under 5Djibouti: 20.9 per 1,000 people, 20.9% of children under 5Dominican Republic: 17.6 per 1,000 people, 5.6% of children under 5Algeria: 18.8 per 1,000 people, 8.9% of children under 5Ecuador: 14.8 per 1,000 people, 17.7% of children under 5Egypt, Arab Rep.: 20.9 per 1,000 people, 12.9% of children under 5Estonia: 7.1 per 1,000 people, 1.3% of children under 5Ethiopia: 31.5 per 1,000 people, 35.5% of children under 5Finland: 7.8 per 1,000 people, 1.7% of children under 5Fiji: 17.9 per 1,000 people, 7.2% of children under 5Gabon: 27.1 per 1,000 people, 13.7% of children under 5United Kingdom: 9.89 per 1,000 people, 3.5% of children under 5Georgia: 11.3 per 1,000 people, 4.7% of children under 5Ghana: 25.9 per 1,000 people, 15.6% of children under 5Guinea: 33.3 per 1,000 people, 26.6% of children under 5Gambia, The: 29.9 per 1,000 people, 14% of children under 5Guinea-Bissau: 29.6 per 1,000 people, 28.3% of children under 5Equatorial Guinea: 30 per 1,000 people, 17.1% of children under 5Greece: 6.6 per 1,000 people, 2% of children under 5Guatemala: 20.6 per 1,000 people, 44.6% of children under 5Guyana: 19.9 per 1,000 people, 7.1% of children under 5Honduras: 21.6 per 1,000 people, 17.9% of children under 5Haiti: 21.9 per 1,000 people, 21.6% of children under 5Indonesia: 15.8 per 1,000 people, 22.6% of children under 5India: 16 per 1,000 people, 32.9% of children under 5Ireland: 10 per 1,000 people, 2.2% of children under 5Iran, Islamic Rep.: 12.6 per 1,000 people, 4.8% of children under 5Iraq: 25.6 per 1,000 people, 9.4% of children under 5Jamaica: 11.4 per 1,000 people, 6.9% of children under 5Jordan: 20.5 per 1,000 people, 7.7% of children under 5Japan: 5.7 per 1,000 people, 5.2% of children under 5Kazakhstan: 19.5 per 1,000 people, 4.4% of children under 5Kenya: 27 per 1,000 people, 17.9% of children under 5Kyrgyz Republic: 19.4 per 1,000 people, 11% of children under 5Cambodia: 20.3 per 1,000 people, 22% of children under 5Kiribati: 25.3 per 1,000 people, 14.7% of children under 5Korea, Rep.: 4.7 per 1,000 people, 1.8% of children under 5Kuwait: 10 per 1,000 people, 4.5% of children under 5Lao PDR: 20.9 per 1,000 people, 29.9% of children under 5Lebanon: 16 per 1,000 people, 10.1% of children under 5Liberia: 30.6 per 1,000 people, 26.9% of children under 5Libya: 16.5 per 1,000 people, 9.2% of children under 5St. Lucia: 11.2 per 1,000 people, 2.8% of children under 5Sri Lanka: 10.1 per 1,000 people, 10.1% of children under 5Lesotho: 23.8 per 1,000 people, 35% of children under 5Lithuania: 6.6 per 1,000 people, 1.6% of children under 5Latvia: 6.9 per 1,000 people, 1.7% of children under 5Morocco: 16.4 per 1,000 people, 13.7% of children under 5Moldova: 10.6 per 1,000 people, 4.2% of children under 5Madagascar: 31.7 per 1,000 people, 38.4% of children under 5Maldives: 10.6 per 1,000 people, 14.2% of children under 5Mexico: 15.5 per 1,000 people, 13.1% of children under 5Marshall Islands: 20.1 per 1,000 people, 30% of children under 5North Macedonia: 8.8 per 1,000 people, 3.8% of children under 5Mali: 39.5 per 1,000 people, 23.2% of children under 5Malta: 7.7 per 1,000 people, 3.5% of children under 5Myanmar: 16.5 per 1,000 people, 24.5% of children under 5Montenegro: 11.2 per 1,000 people, 8% of children under 5Mongolia: 16.9 per 1,000 people, 7.1% of children under 5Mozambique: 37 per 1,000 people, 37% of children under 5Mauritania: 34 per 1,000 people, 21.5% of children under 5Mauritius: 10.3 per 1,000 people, 7.8% of children under 5Malawi: 31.1 per 1,000 people, 33.2% of children under 5Malaysia: 12.4 per 1,000 people, 24.3% of children under 5Namibia: 25.9 per 1,000 people, 16.4% of children under 5Niger: 41.4 per 1,000 people, 48.3% of children under 5Nigeria: 32.5 per 1,000 people, 33.8% of children under 5Netherlands: 9.2 per 1,000 people, 1.6% of children under 5Nepal: 19 per 1,000 people, 26% of children under 5Naoero: 24.6 per 1,000 people, 16% of children under 5Oman: 16.8 per 1,000 people, 12.9% of children under 5Pakistan: 27.4 per 1,000 people, 33.6% of children under 5Panama: 15.9 per 1,000 people, 14% of children under 5Peru: 15.8 per 1,000 people, 10.6% of children under 5Philippines: 15.9 per 1,000 people, 27.7% of children under 5Papua New Guinea: 24.3 per 1,000 people, 47.6% of children under 5Poland: 6.9 per 1,000 people, 1% of children under 5Portugal: 7.9 per 1,000 people, 3.2% of children under 5Paraguay: 19.7 per 1,000 people, 3.2% of children under 5West Bank and Gaza: 26.5 per 1,000 people, 8% of children under 5Qatar: 9.52 per 1,000 people, 5.4% of children under 5Romania: 7.5 per 1,000 people, 7% of children under 5Rwanda: 28.1 per 1,000 people, 29.8% of children under 5Saudi Arabia: 16.5 per 1,000 people, 11.1% of children under 5Sudan: 33 per 1,000 people, 35.4% of children under 5Senegal: 29.2 per 1,000 people, 17.2% of children under 5Singapore: 7.4 per 1,000 people, 2.8% of children under 5Solomon Islands: 26.7 per 1,000 people, 29.8% of children under 5Sierra Leone: 30.1 per 1,000 people, 25.2% of children under 5El Salvador: 15.6 per 1,000 people, 9.4% of children under 5Somalia, Fed. Rep.: 42.3 per 1,000 people, 23.9% of children under 5Serbia: 9.2 per 1,000 people, 4.6% of children under 5Sao Tome and Principe: 28.1 per 1,000 people, 10% of children under 5Suriname: 17.2 per 1,000 people, 8% of children under 5Eswatini: 23.6 per 1,000 people, 18.9% of children under 5Seychelles: 11 per 1,000 people, 6.2% of children under 5Syrian Arab Republic: 23.2 per 1,000 people, 23.5% of children under 5Turks and Caicos Islands: 10.5 per 1,000 people, 3.2% of children under 5Chad: 43.3 per 1,000 people, 31.5% of children under 5Togo: 32.1 per 1,000 people, 23% of children under 5Thailand: 8.12 per 1,000 people, 12.3% of children under 5Tajikistan: 25.3 per 1,000 people, 13.1% of children under 5Turkmenistan: 20.9 per 1,000 people, 6.5% of children under 5Timor-Leste: 21.8 per 1,000 people, 45.4% of children under 5Tonga: 23 per 1,000 people, 1.6% of children under 5Trinidad and Tobago: 10.5 per 1,000 people, 7.8% of children under 5Tunisia: 13.4 per 1,000 people, 8.9% of children under 5Turkiye: 11 per 1,000 people, 5.5% of children under 5Tuvalu: 22 per 1,000 people, 5.3% of children under 5Tanzania: 34.8 per 1,000 people, 29.9% of children under 5Uganda: 34.4 per 1,000 people, 23.5% of children under 5Ukraine: 5.47 per 1,000 people, 11.7% of children under 5Uruguay: 9.8 per 1,000 people, 6.5% of children under 5United States: 10.6 per 1,000 people, 4.2% of children under 5Uzbekistan: 25.6 per 1,000 people, 6.7% of children under 5Viet Nam: 13.4 per 1,000 people, 19.2% of children under 5Vanuatu: 27.7 per 1,000 people, 31% of children under 5Samoa: 25 per 1,000 people, 8.4% of children under 5South Africa: 18.5 per 1,000 people, 24.4% of children under 5Zambia: 32.7 per 1,000 people, 32.3% of children under 5Zimbabwe: 29.9 per 1,000 people, 23.7% of children under 5BDICAFGTMKORLTUMLINERPNGPOLSOMTLSTON

best-fit line line after adjusting

Four ways to measure the link

MethodrpCountries
Standard (Pearson), not adjusted+0.7474.5e-29156
By rank (Spearman), not adjusted+0.7857.1e-34156
Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income+0.2720.001156
By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income+0.3040.000156

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 156 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: +0.475 (a minus sign means it grew).

How solid is it?

Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from +0.218 (without AGO) to +0.299 (without TLS). 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: AGO (-0.054).

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 & Pacific26-0.04
Europe & Central Asia32+0.06
Latin America & Caribbean25+0.36
Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan20+0.52
Sub-Saharan Africa46+0.32

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 third52+0.01
Middle third52+0.31
Richest third52+0.47

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
Christians86+0.33
Muslims48+0.35

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
France25+0.26
Never a European colony21+0.30
Spain18+0.15
United Kingdom52+0.15

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 = +0.292 after dropping 1 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.

The link shows up within countries over time (r = +0.181) but mostly disappears in year-to-year changes (r = +0.076). That points to slow trends particular to each country, not the two measures moving together from year to year.

Across countries (adjusted)+0.272for comparison
Within countries+0.618each country vs itself
…and vs the same year elsewhere+0.181q = 0.029 · 162 countries
Year-on-year changes+0.076q = 0.153
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.
  • Much of the within-country association disappears once shared global year effects are removed, which points to a common worldwide trend rather than a country-level relationship.

4,050 country-years (one country in one year), 162 countries, 2000–2024, about 25 years each on average. Share of the variation that happens within countries over time: 6% for Birth rate, 9% for Child stunting. 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

0.30−0.3-100+10years Child stunting trails Birth rate →lag -10: r = 0.099 (n = 2,430)lag -9: r = 0.113 (n = 2,592)lag -8: r = 0.127 (n = 2,754)lag -7: r = 0.140 (n = 2,916)lag -6: r = 0.150 (n = 3,078)lag -5: r = 0.157 (n = 3,240)lag -4: r = 0.164 (n = 3,402)lag -3: r = 0.169 (n = 3,564)lag -2: r = 0.174 (n = 3,726)lag -1: r = 0.179 (n = 3,888)lag +0: r = 0.181 (n = 4,050)lag +1: r = 0.180 (n = 4,050)lag +2: r = 0.185 (n = 4,050)lag +3: r = 0.190 (n = 4,050)lag +4: r = 0.195 (n = 4,050)lag +5: r = 0.208 (n = 4,050)lag +6: r = 0.219 (n = 4,050)lag +7: r = 0.230 (n = 4,050)lag +8: r = 0.237 (n = 4,050)lag +9: r = 0.245 (n = 4,050)lag +10: r = 0.251 (n = 4,050)

Same year (lag 0): +0.181. 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.

This curve peaks at the edge of the window (lag +10), so it is still drifting where the search stops. That pattern usually reflects a slow trend left over in the data, not a link with real timing. The peak value should not be read as the “true” link at the right lag.

The data


per 1,000 people
% of children under 5		Years
Central African Republic CAF46.238.9%2024
Chad TCD43.331.5%2024
Somalia, Fed. Rep. SOM42.323.9%2024
Niger NER41.448.3%2024
Congo, Dem. Rep. COD40.944.1%2024
Mali MLI39.523.2%2024
Angola AGO37.247.7%2024
Mozambique MOZ3737%2024
Afghanistan AFG3542%2024
Tanzania TZA34.829.9%2024
Uganda UGA34.423.5%2024
Mauritania MRT3421.5%2024
Benin BEN33.433.2%2024
Cameroon CMR33.327.2%2024
Guinea GIN33.326.6%2024

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

Sources

Birth rate

Birth rate, crude (per 1,000 people)

World Bank · CC BY 4.0 · updated quarterly

Child stunting

Prevalence of stunting, height for age, modelled estimate (% of children under 5)

UNICEF, WHO and World Bank Joint Child Malnutrition Estimates · CC BY 4.0 · updated quarterly

An estimate from a statistical model. The agencies fit a model to household surveys and predict every country and year. So this is smoother than the surveys behind it, and it has values for years nobody measured. The survey-only series never reaches sixty countries in any year.

How this was computed

Data used: most recent value in 2010-2025; values come from 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 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 Birth rate and Child stunting

This page shows that two measures go together. It does not show that Birth rate changes Child stunting, or the reverse. These figures also describe countries, not individual people. See the ecological fallacy.

More links with Birth rate or Child stunting