Across 165 countries, Birth registration and Maternal mortality rise and fall together at r = -0.67 (on a scale from −1 to +1, where 0 means no link). Comparing only countries with similar income (GDP per person) shrinks it to -0.36, which could easily be chance (q = 0.088, 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, 10 to 170 per 100,000 live births, birth registration is worse by 14.3% of children under 5 at the top of that range than the bottom. Comparing only countries with similar national income, the gap is 8.13% of children under 5.
Link before adjusting (r)-0.669p = 8.5e-23 · 165 countries
After adjusting for national income-0.364p = 1.7e-6 · likely range [-0.49, -0.22]
p, allowing for regions0.005standard error 0.085 · 7 regions
Check for luck (q)0.088across 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 registration · % of children under 5link with income +0.87 · proxy
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
-0.669
8.5e-23
165
By rank (Spearman), not adjusted
-0.897
1.6e-59
165
Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income
-0.364
1.7e-6
165
By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income
-0.584
2.1e-16
165
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 165 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: +0.306 (a minus sign means it grew).
How solid is it?
Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from -0.410 (without ZMB) to -0.330 (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: ZMB (-0.046).
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
24
-0.21
Europe & Central Asia
47
-0.01
Latin America & Caribbean
25
-0.08
Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan
18
-0.74
Sub-Saharan Africa
44
-0.19
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
55
-0.25
Middle third
55
-0.46
Richest third
55
-0.75
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
103
-0.10
Muslims
41
-0.71
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
23
-0.63
Never a European colony
17
-0.15
Spain
19
-0.58
United Kingdom
51
-0.36
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 = -0.396 after dropping 21 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
% of children under 5
per 100,000 live births
Years
United States USA
100%
17
2022, 2023
Sweden SWE
100%
4
2022, 2023
Slovenia SVN
100%
3
2022, 2023
Slovak Republic SVK
100%
4
2020, 2023
San Marino SMR
100%
8
2022, 2023
Russian Federation RUS
100%
9
2022, 2023
Romania ROU
100%
12
2020, 2023
Qatar QAT
100%
4
2020, 2023
Portugal PRT
100%
15
2020, 2023
Poland POL
100%
2
2017, 2023
Oman OMN
100%
13
2018, 2023
New Zealand NZL
100%
7
2022, 2023
Norway NOR
100%
1
2022, 2023
Netherlands NLD
100%
4
2022, 2023
Malta MLT
100%
8
2022, 2023
World Bank, World Development Indicators World Bank, World Development Indicators
A measure of how far the state reaches: whether it knows a child exists. Based on surveys and sparse. It is near 100 across the rich world, so all the variation is at the other end.
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 2010–2023. 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 Birth registration and Maternal mortality
This page shows that two measures go together. It does not show that Birth registration changes Maternal mortality, or the reverse. These figures also describe countries, not individual people. See the ecological fallacy.
More links with Birth registration or Maternal mortality