placestats

Child stunting vs. Fixed broadband

Fades after adjusting for income

Across 155 countries, Child stunting and Fixed broadband rise and fall together at r = -0.69 (on a scale from −1 to +1, where 0 means no link). Comparing only countries with similar income (GDP per person) shrinks it to -0.21, which could easily be chance (q = 0.13, 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 child stunting, 5.7% to 23.8% of children under 5, fixed broadband is worse by 14.3 per 100 people at the top of that range than the bottom. Comparing only countries with similar national income, the gap is 4.21 per 100 people.

Link before adjusting (r)-0.689p = 3.9e-23 · 155 countries
After adjusting for national income-0.211p = 0.009 · likely range [-0.36, -0.05]
p, allowing for regions0.029standard error 0.074 · 7 regions
Check for luck (q)0.132across 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
Fixed broadband · per 100 peoplelink with income +0.88 · 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

Child stunting · % of children under 5 →Fixed broadband · per 100 people →1%55.3%047.8Afghanistan: 42% of children under 5, 0.0801 per 100 peopleAngola: 47.7% of children under 5, 0.363 per 100 peopleAlbania: 7.4% of children under 5, 24.9 per 100 peopleArgentina: 10.7% of children under 5, 26.1 per 100 peopleArmenia: 6.2% of children under 5, 20.3 per 100 peopleAustralia: 3.1% of children under 5, 36.5 per 100 peopleAzerbaijan: 6.8% of children under 5, 21.8 per 100 peopleBurundi: 55.3% of children under 5, 0.0203 per 100 peopleBelgium: 2.6% of children under 5, 44.2 per 100 peopleBenin: 33.2% of children under 5, 0.277 per 100 peopleBurkina Faso: 19.5% of children under 5, 0.851 per 100 peopleBangladesh: 25.1% of children under 5, 8.09 per 100 peopleBulgaria: 5.5% of children under 5, 37 per 100 peopleBahrain: 4.6% of children under 5, 17 per 100 peopleBosnia and Herzegovina: 7.9% of children under 5, 29.4 per 100 peopleBelarus: 1.1% of children under 5, 36.3 per 100 peopleBelize: 11.7% of children under 5, 9.75 per 100 peopleBolivia: 10.7% of children under 5, 12.1 per 100 peopleBrazil: 8.9% of children under 5, 24.1 per 100 peopleBarbados: 5.8% of children under 5, 37.5 per 100 peopleBrunei Darussalam: 9.9% of children under 5, 21.2 per 100 peopleBhutan: 17.9% of children under 5, 2.92 per 100 peopleBotswana: 21% of children under 5, 7.44 per 100 peopleCentral African Republic: 38.9% of children under 5, 0.0161 per 100 peopleChile: 1.7% of children under 5, 23.7 per 100 peopleChina: 4.5% of children under 5, 47.2 per 100 peopleCote d'Ivoire: 20.3% of children under 5, 1.6 per 100 peopleCameroon: 27.2% of children under 5, 2.13 per 100 peopleCongo, Dem. Rep.: 44.1% of children under 5, 0.032 per 100 peopleCongo, Rep.: 16.3% of children under 5, 1.27 per 100 peopleColombia: 11.6% of children under 5, 17.2 per 100 peopleComoros: 17.4% of children under 5, 0.388 per 100 peopleCabo Verde: 5.3% of children under 5, 8.31 per 100 peopleCosta Rica: 10.6% of children under 5, 23.3 per 100 peopleCzechia: 2.4% of children under 5, 38.9 per 100 peopleGermany: 2.2% of children under 5, 45.6 per 100 peopleDjibouti: 20.9% of children under 5, 1.47 per 100 peopleDominican Republic: 5.6% of children under 5, 11.2 per 100 peopleAlgeria: 8.9% of children under 5, 13.3 per 100 peopleEcuador: 17.7% of children under 5, 17.2 per 100 peopleEgypt, Arab Rep.: 12.9% of children under 5, 11.7 per 100 peopleEstonia: 1.3% of children under 5, 35.4 per 100 peopleEthiopia: 35.5% of children under 5, 0.594 per 100 peopleFinland: 1.7% of children under 5, 36.5 per 100 peopleFiji: 7.2% of children under 5, 1.8 per 100 peopleGabon: 13.7% of children under 5, 4.69 per 100 peopleUnited Kingdom: 3.5% of children under 5, 42.2 per 100 peopleGeorgia: 4.7% of children under 5, 30.4 per 100 peopleGhana: 15.6% of children under 5, 0.665 per 100 peopleGuinea: 26.6% of children under 5, 0.00628 per 100 peopleGambia, The: 14% of children under 5, 0.519 per 100 peopleGuinea-Bissau: 28.3% of children under 5, 0.386 per 100 peopleEquatorial Guinea: 17.1% of children under 5, 0.101 per 100 peopleGreece: 2% of children under 5, 44.7 per 100 peopleGuatemala: 44.6% of children under 5, 5.34 per 100 peopleGuyana: 7.1% of children under 5, 12.9 per 100 peopleHonduras: 17.9% of children under 5, 4.58 per 100 peopleHaiti: 21.6% of children under 5, 0.307 per 100 peopleIndonesia: 22.6% of children under 5, 4.92 per 100 peopleIndia: 32.9% of children under 5, 3.15 per 100 peopleIreland: 2.2% of children under 5, 32.3 per 100 peopleIran, Islamic Rep.: 4.8% of children under 5, 12.1 per 100 peopleIraq: 9.4% of children under 5, 17.6 per 100 peopleJamaica: 6.9% of children under 5, 16 per 100 peopleJordan: 7.7% of children under 5, 7.02 per 100 peopleJapan: 5.2% of children under 5, 38.6 per 100 peopleKazakhstan: 4.4% of children under 5, 15.3 per 100 peopleKenya: 17.9% of children under 5, 3.04 per 100 peopleKyrgyz Republic: 11% of children under 5, 7.8 per 100 peopleCambodia: 22% of children under 5, 4.15 per 100 peopleKiribati: 14.7% of children under 5, 0.0349 per 100 peopleKorea, Rep.: 1.8% of children under 5, 47.8 per 100 peopleKuwait: 4.5% of children under 5, 1.01 per 100 peopleLao PDR: 29.9% of children under 5, 2.72 per 100 peopleLebanon: 10.1% of children under 5, 7.29 per 100 peopleLiberia: 26.9% of children under 5, 0.275 per 100 peopleLibya: 9.2% of children under 5, 4.52 per 100 peopleSt. Lucia: 2.8% of children under 5, 13.6 per 100 peopleSri Lanka: 10.1% of children under 5, 8.47 per 100 peopleLesotho: 35% of children under 5, 0.379 per 100 peopleLithuania: 1.6% of children under 5, 27.8 per 100 peopleLatvia: 1.7% of children under 5, 25.8 per 100 peopleMorocco: 13.7% of children under 5, 7.3 per 100 peopleMoldova: 4.2% of children under 5, 29.6 per 100 peopleMadagascar: 38.4% of children under 5, 0.124 per 100 peopleMaldives: 14.2% of children under 5, 19.6 per 100 peopleMexico: 13.1% of children under 5, 21.7 per 100 peopleMarshall Islands: 30% of children under 5, 2.35 per 100 peopleNorth Macedonia: 3.8% of children under 5, 29.9 per 100 peopleMali: 23.2% of children under 5, 0.774 per 100 peopleMalta: 3.5% of children under 5, 44.5 per 100 peopleMyanmar: 24.5% of children under 5, 2.87 per 100 peopleMontenegro: 8% of children under 5, 32.3 per 100 peopleMongolia: 7.1% of children under 5, 15.8 per 100 peopleMozambique: 37% of children under 5, 0.142 per 100 peopleMauritania: 21.5% of children under 5, 0.947 per 100 peopleMauritius: 7.8% of children under 5, 28 per 100 peopleMalawi: 33.2% of children under 5, 0.0864 per 100 peopleMalaysia: 24.3% of children under 5, 13.5 per 100 peopleNamibia: 16.4% of children under 5, 2.83 per 100 peopleNiger: 48.3% of children under 5, 0.111 per 100 peopleNigeria: 33.8% of children under 5, 0.0787 per 100 peopleNetherlands: 1.6% of children under 5, 43 per 100 peopleNepal: 26% of children under 5, 10.1 per 100 peopleNaoero: 16% of children under 5, 9.96 per 100 peopleOman: 12.9% of children under 5, 11.1 per 100 peoplePakistan: 33.6% of children under 5, 1.47 per 100 peoplePanama: 14% of children under 5, 18.1 per 100 peoplePeru: 10.6% of children under 5, 11.7 per 100 peoplePhilippines: 27.7% of children under 5, 7.14 per 100 peoplePapua New Guinea: 47.6% of children under 5, 0.233 per 100 peoplePoland: 1% of children under 5, 25.4 per 100 peoplePortugal: 3.2% of children under 5, 45.2 per 100 peopleParaguay: 3.2% of children under 5, 12.9 per 100 peopleWest Bank and Gaza: 8% of children under 5, 8.16 per 100 peopleQatar: 5.4% of children under 5, 11.8 per 100 peopleRomania: 7% of children under 5, 35.8 per 100 peopleRwanda: 29.8% of children under 5, 0.596 per 100 peopleSaudi Arabia: 11.1% of children under 5, 44.1 per 100 peopleSudan: 35.4% of children under 5, 0.0604 per 100 peopleSenegal: 17.2% of children under 5, 4.04 per 100 peopleSingapore: 2.8% of children under 5, 27.8 per 100 peopleSolomon Islands: 29.8% of children under 5, 0.107 per 100 peopleSierra Leone: 25.2% of children under 5, 0.00227 per 100 peopleEl Salvador: 9.4% of children under 5, 12.5 per 100 peopleSomalia, Fed. Rep.: 23.9% of children under 5, 0.723 per 100 peopleSerbia: 4.6% of children under 5, 33.4 per 100 peopleSao Tome and Principe: 10% of children under 5, 2.99 per 100 peopleSuriname: 8% of children under 5, 18.8 per 100 peopleEswatini: 18.9% of children under 5, 2.51 per 100 peopleSeychelles: 6.2% of children under 5, 31.6 per 100 peopleSyrian Arab Republic: 23.5% of children under 5, 6.86 per 100 peopleChad: 31.5% of children under 5, 0 per 100 peopleTogo: 23% of children under 5, 1.42 per 100 peopleThailand: 12.3% of children under 5, 14.9 per 100 peopleTajikistan: 13.1% of children under 5, 0.984 per 100 peopleTurkmenistan: 6.5% of children under 5, 5.22 per 100 peopleTimor-Leste: 45.4% of children under 5, 0.006 per 100 peopleTonga: 1.6% of children under 5, 8.17 per 100 peopleTrinidad and Tobago: 7.8% of children under 5, 27 per 100 peopleTunisia: 8.9% of children under 5, 15 per 100 peopleTurkiye: 5.5% of children under 5, 23.4 per 100 peopleTuvalu: 5.3% of children under 5, 4.52 per 100 peopleTanzania: 29.9% of children under 5, 0.246 per 100 peopleUganda: 23.5% of children under 5, 0.208 per 100 peopleUkraine: 11.7% of children under 5, 21.7 per 100 peopleUruguay: 6.5% of children under 5, 33 per 100 peopleUnited States: 4.2% of children under 5, 38.9 per 100 peopleUzbekistan: 6.7% of children under 5, 34.7 per 100 peopleViet Nam: 19.2% of children under 5, 23.7 per 100 peopleVanuatu: 31% of children under 5, 1.16 per 100 peopleSamoa: 8.4% of children under 5, 0.878 per 100 peopleSouth Africa: 24.4% of children under 5, 5.35 per 100 peopleZambia: 32.3% of children under 5, 0.79 per 100 peopleZimbabwe: 23.7% of children under 5, 1.94 per 100 peopleBDIDEUFJIGRCGTMKORKWTNERPNGSAUTON

best-fit line line after adjusting

Four ways to measure the link

MethodrpCountries
Standard (Pearson), not adjusted-0.6893.9e-23155
By rank (Spearman), not adjusted-0.8171.8e-38155
Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income-0.2110.009155
By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income-0.3944.2e-7155

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 155 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: +0.478 (a minus sign means it grew).

How solid is it?

Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from -0.236 (without BDI) to -0.193 (without AGO). 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: BDI (-0.025).

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 & Pacific26-0.27
Europe & Central Asia32-0.24
Latin America & Caribbean24-0.30
Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan20-0.01
Sub-Saharan Africa46-0.14

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 third52-0.23
Middle third51-0.35
Richest third52-0.42

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
Christians86-0.16
Muslims48-0.19

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+0.01
Never a European colony21-0.03
Spain18-0.28
United Kingdom52-0.22

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 = -0.236 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 also shows up within countries over time (r = +0.377). It holds even when looking only at changes from one year to the next (r = +0.188). This is the strongest kind of evidence available here: it holds when each country is compared only with itself, and it is not just a product of shared trends.

Across countries (adjusted)-0.211for comparison
Within countries-0.321each country vs itself
…and vs the same year elsewhere+0.377q = 0.000 · 158 countries
Year-on-year changes+0.188q = 1.0e-5
The direction flips. Comparing each country only with itself gives -0.32. Also taking out what happened to the whole world each year gives +0.38. So the first figure was picking up a trend both measures share with worldwide progress, not a link between them.
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.

3,272 country-years (one country in one year), 158 countries, 2000–2024, about 21 years each on average. Share of the variation that happens within countries over time: 7% for Child stunting, 36% for Fixed broadband. 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

0.50−0.5-100+10years Fixed broadband trails Child stunting →lag -10: r = 0.450 (n = 1,788)lag -9: r = 0.455 (n = 1,938)lag -8: r = 0.456 (n = 2,102)lag -7: r = 0.455 (n = 2,264)lag -6: r = 0.455 (n = 2,407)lag -5: r = 0.447 (n = 2,563)lag -4: r = 0.437 (n = 2,717)lag -3: r = 0.426 (n = 2,874)lag -2: r = 0.413 (n = 3,031)lag -1: r = 0.398 (n = 3,160)lag +0: r = 0.377 (n = 3,272)lag +1: r = 0.363 (n = 3,246)lag +2: r = 0.350 (n = 3,196)lag +3: r = 0.328 (n = 3,123)lag +4: r = 0.295 (n = 3,034)lag +5: r = 0.264 (n = 2,930)lag +6: r = 0.230 (n = 2,803)lag +7: r = 0.196 (n = 2,677)lag +8: r = 0.162 (n = 2,539)lag +9: r = 0.130 (n = 2,393)lag +10: r = 0.098 (n = 2,246)

Same year (lag 0): +0.377. 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 (+0.46 at lag -8) is higher than the same-year one by 0.08. 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 children under 5
per 100 people		Years
Burundi BDI55.3%0.02032024, 2023
Niger NER48.3%0.1112024
Angola AGO47.7%0.3632024
Papua New Guinea PNG47.6%0.2332024
Timor-Leste TLS45.4%0.0062024
Guatemala GTM44.6%5.342024
Congo, Dem. Rep. COD44.1%0.0322024
Afghanistan AFG42%0.08012024, 2023
Central African Republic CAF38.9%0.01612024, 2022
Madagascar MDG38.4%0.1242024, 2023
Mozambique MOZ37%0.1422024
Ethiopia ETH35.5%0.5942024
Sudan SDN35.4%0.06042024, 2022
Lesotho LSO35%0.3792024
Nigeria NGA33.8%0.07872024

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

Sources

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.

Fixed broadband

Fixed broadband subscriptions (per 100 people)

International Telecommunication Union · CC BY 4.0 · updated quarterly

Subscriptions, not people. A household line counts once, however many people use it. A country that went straight to mobile data can be well connected with few of these lines. Internet users, already on the site, is the measure of people.

How this was computed

Data used: most recent value in 2010-2025; values come from 2021–2024. 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 Child stunting and Fixed broadband

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

More links with Child stunting or Fixed broadband