Corruption Perceptions Index vs. Religiously unaffiliated
Holds up after adjusting for income
A country is not a person. Countries where more people are counted as belonging to this group also tend to differ on the other measure, and that is all. It does not follow that the people in the group are the people with the different score. Making that leap is called the ecological fallacy: reading a pattern across places as a fact about individual people. It is the most common misuse of this kind of data. Religion also varies strongly with region, history and national income, so much of what looks religious here is really those. That is what the adjusted figures are for. The religion shares are estimates for two years only, and the survey questions are asked in rounds that can be ten years apart.
Across 174 countries, Corruption Perceptions Index and Religiously unaffiliated rise and fall together at r = +0.50 (on a scale from −1 to +1, where 0 means no link). Comparing only countries with similar income (GDP per person) shrinks it to +0.31 (q = 0.036, allowing for the many pairs tested). Much of the first figure is that both measures rise with national income, but a weak positive link remains.
Comparing countries across the middle half of corruption perceptions index, 30 to 57 points, religiously unaffiliated is 11.8% of population higher at the top of that range than the bottom. Comparing only countries with similar national income, the gap is 9.3% of population.
Link before adjusting (r)+0.504p = 1.4e-12 · 174 countries
After adjusting for national income+0.312p = 2.9e-5 · likely range [+0.17, +0.44]
p, allowing for regions0.003standard error 0.064 · 7 regions
Check for luck (q)0.036across 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.
Corruption Perceptions Index · index (0-100, higher = cleaner)link with income +0.72 · high
Religiously unaffiliated · % of populationlink with income +0.51 · moderate
“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
+0.504
1.4e-12
174
By rank (Spearman), not adjusted
+0.462
1.4e-10
174
Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income
+0.312
2.9e-5
174
By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income
+0.171
0.025
174
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 174 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: +0.191 (a minus sign means it grew).
How solid is it?
Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from +0.294 (without NZL) to +0.354 (without CHN). 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: CHN (+0.042).
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
22
+0.13
Europe & Central Asia
49
+0.29
Latin America & Caribbean
28
+0.48
Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan
21
+0.02
Sub-Saharan Africa
46
+0.09
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
58
-0.13
Middle third
58
+0.07
Richest third
58
+0.53
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
104
+0.34
Muslims
49
-0.03
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
25
+0.15
Never a European colony
21
+0.31
Spain
19
+0.64
United Kingdom
54
+0.45
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 = +0.276 after dropping 17 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.
Loading…
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
index (0-100, higher = cleaner)
% of population
Years
Denmark DNK
90
16.6%
2024, 2020
Finland FIN
88
25%
2024, 2020
Singapore SGP
84
19.9%
2024, 2020
New Zealand NZL
83
51.4%
2024, 2020
Norway NOR
81
22.5%
2024, 2020
Luxembourg LUX
81
25.3%
2024, 2020
Switzerland CHE
81
30.8%
2024, 2020
Sweden SWE
80
28.9%
2024, 2020
Netherlands NLD
78
54.1%
2024, 2020
Iceland ISL
77
19.8%
2024, 2020
Ireland IRL
77
15.6%
2024, 2020
Australia AUS
77
42.3%
2024, 2020
Uruguay URY
76
52.4%
2024, 2020
Estonia EST
76
43.6%
2024, 2020
Germany DEU
75
36.1%
2024, 2020
Transparency International, Corruption Perceptions Index Pew Research Center, Religious Composition by Country, 2010-2020. Pew Research Center bears no responsibility for the analyses or interpretations of the data presented here. One of these measures is published under a licence that forbids changes. Values are shown exactly as published and must not be republished in a changed or rescaled form.
Transparency International · via Our World in Data · CC BY-ND 4.0 · updated annual · comparable from 2012 only
Measures how corrupt the public sector is believed to be, based on 13 surveys of experts and business people. Some of the same surveys feed the Worldwide Governance Indicators' Control of Corruption measure, so the two share ingredients.
Pew Research Center · via Our World in Data · Pew Research Center terms of use, excerpts with attribution · updated decennial · comparable from 2010 only
People who belong to no religion: atheists, agnostics and those who say "nothing in particular". Pew estimated it from censuses and surveys for 2010 and 2020. Belonging is a third thing, beside the attendance and importance measures already here. A country can be almost all affiliated and rarely attend, as much of Europe is. With only two years, nothing here shows a trend. No "better" direction is set.
How this was computed
Data used: most recent value in 2010-2025; values come from 2014–2024. 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 Corruption Perceptions Index and Religiously unaffiliated
This page shows that two measures go together. It does not show that Corruption Perceptions Index changes Religiously unaffiliated, or the reverse. These figures also describe countries, not individual people. See the ecological fallacy.
More links with Corruption Perceptions Index or Religiously unaffiliated