Across 178 countries, Education score and Gender Development Index rise and fall together at r = +0.68 (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 = 0.16, 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: correlation moves sharply once outliers are trimmed. Gender Development Index and Education score share a building block (undp eys, undp mys), so part of this link is mechanical: they are bound to match to some degree.
Comparing countries across the middle half of gender development index, 0.931 to 0.994 ratio of women's HDI to men's, education score is better by 0.452 typical gaps at the top of that range than the bottom. Comparing only countries with similar national income, the gap is 0.181 typical gaps.
Link before adjusting (r)+0.683p = 7.8e-26 · 178 countries
After adjusting for national income+0.365p = 5.9e-7 · likely range [+0.23, +0.49]
p, allowing for regions0.002standard error 0.066 · 7 regions
Check for luck (q)0.162across 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.
Education score · typical gaps (standard deviations)link with income +0.81 · proxy
Gender Development Index · ratio of women's HDI to men'slink with income +0.65 · high
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.
Built from the same numbers. Gender Development Index and Education score share a building block (undp eys, undp mys), so part of this link is mechanical: they are bound to match to some degree.
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
+0.683
7.8e-26
178
By rank (Spearman), not adjusted
+0.591
3.9e-18
178
Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income
+0.365
5.9e-7
178
By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income
+0.129
0.086
178
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 178 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: +0.319 (a minus sign means it grew).
How solid is it?
Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from +0.342 (without DJI) to +0.391 (without AFG). 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: AFG (+0.026).
Fragile: this link may not hold up.
correlation moves sharply once outliers are trimmed
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
30
+0.42
Europe & Central Asia
48
-0.23
Latin America & Caribbean
27
+0.06
Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan
21
+0.32
Sub-Saharan Africa
44
+0.59
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
60
+0.54
Middle third
59
+0.05
Richest third
59
-0.18
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
+0.28
Muslims
47
+0.26
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
+0.42
Never a European colony
20
+0.20
Spain
19
-0.01
United Kingdom
59
+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 = +0.188 after dropping 12 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
typical gaps (standard deviations)
ratio of women's HDI to men's
Years
New Zealand NZL
1.44
0.973
2023
Hong Kong SAR, China HKG
1.34
0.976
2024, 2023
Greece GRC
1.31
0.963
2023
Netherlands NLD
1.27
0.971
2023
Iceland ISL
1.26
0.983
2023
Singapore SGP
1.26
0.994
2023
Belgium BEL
1.25
0.979
2023
United Kingdom GBR
1.19
0.979
2023
Ireland IRL
1.18
1
2022, 2023
Slovenia SVN
1.18
0.997
2023
United States USA
1.11
1.01
2022, 2023
Czechia CZE
1.08
0.987
2023
Canada CAN
1.06
0.991
2023
Japan JPN
1.04
0.97
2023
Argentina ARG
1.03
0.988
2023
uis; undp_hdr; wdi United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2025
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.
United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report Office · via Our World in Data · CC BY 3.0 IGO · updated annual
The HDI worked out for women divided by the HDI worked out for men. It is above 1 where women score higher, as they do in several countries on health. So no "better" direction is set: equality is the aim, and equality is the middle of the scale, not one end of it.
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 Education score and Gender Development Index
This page shows that two measures go together. It does not show that Education score changes Gender Development Index, or the reverse. These figures also describe countries, not individual people. See the ecological fallacy.
More links with Education score or Gender Development Index