placestats

Birth registration vs. Redistribution

Fades after adjusting for income

Across 43 countries, Birth registration and Redistribution rise and fall together at r = +0.59 (on a scale from −1 to +1, where 0 means no link). Comparing only countries with similar income (GDP per person) shrinks it to +0.22, which could easily be chance (q = 0.54, 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 redistribution, 26.5% to 38.4% reduction in the Gini, birth registration is better by 1.52% of children under 5 at the top of that range than the bottom. Comparing only countries with similar national income, the gap is 0.5% of children under 5.

Link before adjusting (r)+0.595p = 2.6e-5 · 43 countries
After adjusting for national income+0.222p = 0.157 · likely range [-0.09, +0.49]
p, allowing for regions0.423standard error 0.259 · 7 regions
Check for luck (q)0.544across 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
Redistribution · % reduction in the Ginilink with income +0.50 · moderate

“Link with income” is how closely each measure tracks GDP per person across countries, from −1 to +1.

Every country as a dot

Birth registration · % of children under 5 →Redistribution · % reduction in the Gini →88.6%100%2.67%48.3%Australia: 100% of children under 5, 27.7% reduction in the GiniAustria: 100% of children under 5, 41.4% reduction in the GiniBelgium: 100% of children under 5, 47.7% reduction in the GiniBulgaria: 100% of children under 5, 26% reduction in the GiniBrazil: 96.4% of children under 5, 13.8% reduction in the GiniCanada: 100% of children under 5, 29.3% reduction in the GiniSwitzerland: 100% of children under 5, 21.2% reduction in the GiniChile: 99.4% of children under 5, 8.68% reduction in the GiniCosta Rica: 99.6% of children under 5, 12.6% reduction in the GiniCzechia: 100% of children under 5, 43.5% reduction in the GiniGermany: 100% of children under 5, 38.7% reduction in the GiniDenmark: 100% of children under 5, 37.5% reduction in the GiniSpain: 100% of children under 5, 34.4% reduction in the GiniEstonia: 100% of children under 5, 33.5% reduction in the GiniFinland: 100% of children under 5, 47.2% reduction in the GiniFrance: 100% of children under 5, 42.2% reduction in the GiniUnited Kingdom: 100% of children under 5, 29.7% reduction in the GiniGreece: 100% of children under 5, 36.9% reduction in the GiniCroatia: 100% of children under 5, 33.1% reduction in the GiniHungary: 100% of children under 5, 29.4% reduction in the GiniIndia: 89.1% of children under 5, 2.67% reduction in the GiniIreland: 100% of children under 5, 41.2% reduction in the GiniIceland: 100% of children under 5, 35.7% reduction in the GiniIsrael: 100% of children under 5, 23.2% reduction in the GiniItaly: 100% of children under 5, 36.2% reduction in the GiniJapan: 100% of children under 5, 34.1% reduction in the GiniLithuania: 100% of children under 5, 29.7% reduction in the GiniLuxembourg: 100% of children under 5, 35.7% reduction in the GiniLatvia: 100% of children under 5, 28.1% reduction in the GiniMexico: 97% of children under 5, 3.77% reduction in the GiniNetherlands: 100% of children under 5, 34.2% reduction in the GiniNorway: 100% of children under 5, 39.5% reduction in the GiniNew Zealand: 100% of children under 5, 28.7% reduction in the GiniPoland: 100% of children under 5, 41.9% reduction in the GiniPortugal: 100% of children under 5, 36.5% reduction in the GiniRomania: 100% of children under 5, 38.1% reduction in the GiniRussian Federation: 100% of children under 5, 27% reduction in the GiniSlovak Republic: 100% of children under 5, 48.3% reduction in the GiniSlovenia: 100% of children under 5, 42.4% reduction in the GiniSweden: 100% of children under 5, 33.1% reduction in the GiniTurkiye: 98.4% of children under 5, 18.6% reduction in the GiniUnited States: 100% of children under 5, 22.1% reduction in the GiniSouth Africa: 88.6% of children under 5, 12.8% reduction in the GiniBELCHLCRIFININDMEXSVKZAF

best-fit line line after adjusting

Four ways to measure the link

MethodrpCountries
Standard (Pearson), not adjusted+0.5952.6e-543
By rank (Spearman), not adjusted+0.6374.4e-643
Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income+0.2220.15743
By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income+0.4870.00143

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 43 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: +0.373 (a minus sign means it grew).

How solid is it?

Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from +0.178 (without LUX) to +0.298 (without ZAF). 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: ZAF (+0.076).

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
Europe & Central Asia31+0.41

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 third15-0.47

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
Christians36+0.20

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 = +0.200 after dropping 2 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
% reduction in the Gini		Years
United States USA100%22.1%2022, 2023
Sweden SWE100%33.1%2022, 2023
Slovenia SVN100%42.4%2022, 2023
Slovak Republic SVK100%48.3%2020, 2023
Russian Federation RUS100%27%2022, 2017
Romania ROU100%38.1%2020, 2023
Portugal PRT100%36.5%2020, 2023
Poland POL100%41.9%2017, 2023
New Zealand NZL100%28.7%2022
Norway NOR100%39.5%2022
Netherlands NLD100%34.2%2022, 2023
Latvia LVA100%28.1%2022, 2023
Luxembourg LUX100%35.7%2022, 2023
Lithuania LTU100%29.7%2020, 2023
Japan JPN100%34.1%2022, 2021

World Bank, World Development Indicators
OECD databases as named on each indicator: PISA, Social Expenditure Database (SOCX), Income Distribution Database, Development Assistance Committee statistics, Family Database, Government at a Glance, Corporate Tax Statistics, employment and environment statistics

Sources

Birth registration

Completeness of birth registration (%)

UNICEF · CC BY 4.0 · updated quarterly

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.

Redistribution

Reduction in the Gini coefficient from taxes and transfers

OECD · via Our World in Data · CC BY 4.0 (OECD terms and conditions) · updated annual, except the snapshots noted per indicator · comparable from 2011 only

The Gini before taxes and payments minus the Gini after them, as a share of the first. It shows how much of the inequality produced by the market the government removes. It is built from the before-tax Gini above, so their pair is built from the same numbers and flagged. No "better" direction is set: a country may redistribute little because its market incomes are already equal.

How this was computed

Data used: most recent value in 2010-2025; values come from 2011–2024. 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 registration and Redistribution

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

More links with Birth registration or Redistribution