Across 154 countries, Child stunting and Education score rise and fall together at r = -0.71 (on a scale from −1 to +1, where 0 means no link). Comparing only countries with similar income (GDP per person) shrinks it to -0.24, which could easily be chance (q = 0.24, 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. Caution: direction is not consistent across regions.
Comparing countries across the middle half of child stunting, 5.53% to 23.9% of children under 5, education score is worse by 0.675 typical gaps at the top of that range than the bottom. Comparing only countries with similar national income, the gap is 0.22 typical gaps.
Link before adjusting (r)-0.709p = 7.3e-25 · 154 countries
After adjusting for national income-0.244p = 0.002 · likely range [-0.39, -0.09]
p, allowing for regions0.082standard error 0.117 · 7 regions
Check for luck (q)0.241across 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.
Child stunting · % of children under 5link with income -0.80 · proxy
Education score · typical gaps (standard deviations)link with income +0.81 · 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
-0.709
7.3e-25
154
By rank (Spearman), not adjusted
-0.775
4.0e-32
154
Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income
-0.244
0.002
154
By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income
-0.366
3.3e-6
154
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 154 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: +0.465 (a minus sign means it grew).
How solid is it?
Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from -0.291 (without SOM) to -0.217 (without TON). 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: SOM (-0.046).
Fragile: this link may not hold up.
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.
n
r
East Asia & Pacific
26
-0.60
Europe & Central Asia
32
-0.03
Latin America & Caribbean
24
-0.17
Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan
19
-0.62
Sub-Saharan Africa
46
+0.05
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
52
-0.11
Middle third
51
-0.27
Richest third
51
-0.44
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
85
-0.27
Muslims
47
-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
24
-0.22
Never a European colony
21
-0.53
Spain
18
-0.21
United Kingdom
51
-0.29
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 = -0.306 after dropping 3 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
typical gaps (standard deviations)
Years
Burundi BDI
55.3%
-0.587
2024, 2025
Niger NER
48.3%
-1.04
2024, 2023
Angola AGO
47.7%
-0.482
2024, 2023
Papua New Guinea PNG
47.6%
-0.297
2024, 2023
Timor-Leste TLS
45.4%
0.12
2024, 2023
Guatemala GTM
44.6%
0.22
2024
Congo, Dem. Rep. COD
44.1%
-0.251
2024, 2023
Afghanistan AFG
42%
-0.557
2024, 2023
Central African Republic CAF
38.9%
-1.65
2024, 2016
Madagascar MDG
38.4%
-0.569
2024, 2023
Mozambique MOZ
37%
-0.56
2024, 2022
Ethiopia ETH
35.5%
-0.777
2024, 2023
Sudan SDN
35.4%
-0.831
2024, 2019
Lesotho LSO
35%
-0.337
2024, 2023
Nigeria NGA
33.8%
-0.241
2024, 2023
World Bank, World Development Indicators uis; undp_hdr; wdi
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.
PlaceStats · via PlaceStats · Derived work; each member keeps its own licence · updated recomputed with the panel
The average of 10 measures from 3 publishers. Each measure is first put on a common scale: 0 is the average country in an average year, and 1 is a typical gap between countries (a standard deviation). Each is turned so that higher is better. Measures are averaged within each publisher first, so a publisher with many measures does not count for more. Members: Primary completion, Expected schooling, Mean years of schooling, Adult literacy, Pupil-teacher ratio, Primary enrollment, Out of school, primary, Secondary enrollment, Tertiary enrollment, Researchers.
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 Child stunting and Education score
This page shows that two measures go together. It does not show that Child stunting changes Education score, or the reverse. These figures also describe countries, not individual people. See the ecological fallacy.