placestats

Education score vs. Unintended pregnancies ending in abortion

Holds up after adjusting for income

Across 141 countries, Education score and Unintended pregnancies ending in abortion rise and fall together at r = +0.21 (on a scale from −1 to +1, where 0 means no link). It holds up almost unchanged when only countries with similar income (GDP per person) are compared (r = +0.21, q = 0.016, allowing for the many pairs tested). Caution: direction is not consistent across regions.

Comparing countries across the middle half of unintended pregnancies ending in abortion, 31.3% to 58.5% of unintended pregnancies, education score is better by 0.238 typical gaps at the top of that range than the bottom. Comparing only countries with similar national income, the gap is 0.121 typical gaps.

Link before adjusting (r)+0.213p = 0.011 · 141 countries
After adjusting for national income+0.212p = 0.012 · likely range [+0.05, +0.37]
p, allowing for regions0.114standard error 0.115 · 7 regions
Check for luck (q)0.016across 14,952 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
Unintended pregnancies ending in abortion · % of unintended pregnancieslink with income +0.12 · independent

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

Every country as a dot

Education score · typical gaps (standard deviations) →Unintended pregnancies ending in abortion · % of unintended pregnancies →-2.11.4419.7%86.1%Angola: -0.482 typical gaps (standard deviations), 28.1% of unintended pregnanciesAlbania: 0.923 typical gaps (standard deviations), 59.2% of unintended pregnanciesArgentina: 1.03 typical gaps (standard deviations), 48.4% of unintended pregnanciesArmenia: 0.65 typical gaps (standard deviations), 81.8% of unintended pregnanciesAustralia: 1.03 typical gaps (standard deviations), 43.1% of unintended pregnanciesAzerbaijan: 0.629 typical gaps (standard deviations), 77.6% of unintended pregnanciesBurundi: -0.587 typical gaps (standard deviations), 26.2% of unintended pregnanciesBelgium: 1.25 typical gaps (standard deviations), 37.1% of unintended pregnanciesBenin: -0.586 typical gaps (standard deviations), 36.9% of unintended pregnanciesBurkina Faso: -0.582 typical gaps (standard deviations), 40.6% of unintended pregnanciesBangladesh: 0.335 typical gaps (standard deviations), 60.1% of unintended pregnanciesBulgaria: 0.794 typical gaps (standard deviations), 35.7% of unintended pregnanciesBosnia and Herzegovina: 0.607 typical gaps (standard deviations), 57.3% of unintended pregnanciesBelarus: 0.722 typical gaps (standard deviations), 56% of unintended pregnanciesBelize: 0.166 typical gaps (standard deviations), 45.2% of unintended pregnanciesBolivia: 0.634 typical gaps (standard deviations), 36.3% of unintended pregnanciesBrazil: 0.731 typical gaps (standard deviations), 48.4% of unintended pregnanciesBarbados: 0.581 typical gaps (standard deviations), 58% of unintended pregnanciesBhutan: 0.277 typical gaps (standard deviations), 67.9% of unintended pregnanciesBotswana: 0.469 typical gaps (standard deviations), 32.2% of unintended pregnanciesCentral African Republic: -1.65 typical gaps (standard deviations), 30% of unintended pregnanciesCanada: 1.06 typical gaps (standard deviations), 36.8% of unintended pregnanciesSwitzerland: 0.92 typical gaps (standard deviations), 25.5% of unintended pregnanciesChile: 0.979 typical gaps (standard deviations), 52.5% of unintended pregnanciesChina: 0.674 typical gaps (standard deviations), 77.9% of unintended pregnanciesCote d'Ivoire: -0.0434 typical gaps (standard deviations), 36.7% of unintended pregnanciesCameroon: -0.125 typical gaps (standard deviations), 40.7% of unintended pregnanciesCongo, Dem. Rep.: -0.251 typical gaps (standard deviations), 27.9% of unintended pregnanciesCongo, Rep.: 0.119 typical gaps (standard deviations), 42.6% of unintended pregnanciesColombia: 0.63 typical gaps (standard deviations), 43.2% of unintended pregnanciesComoros: 0.00771 typical gaps (standard deviations), 32.4% of unintended pregnanciesCabo Verde: -0.216 typical gaps (standard deviations), 48.6% of unintended pregnanciesCosta Rica: 0.629 typical gaps (standard deviations), 41% of unintended pregnanciesCzechia: 1.08 typical gaps (standard deviations), 19.7% of unintended pregnanciesGermany: 0.938 typical gaps (standard deviations), 27.1% of unintended pregnanciesDjibouti: -0.825 typical gaps (standard deviations), 41.4% of unintended pregnanciesDenmark: 0.941 typical gaps (standard deviations), 38.9% of unintended pregnanciesDominican Republic: 0.651 typical gaps (standard deviations), 44% of unintended pregnanciesEcuador: 0.722 typical gaps (standard deviations), 35.1% of unintended pregnanciesSpain: 0.983 typical gaps (standard deviations), 43.1% of unintended pregnanciesEstonia: 0.841 typical gaps (standard deviations), 41.7% of unintended pregnanciesEthiopia: -0.777 typical gaps (standard deviations), 31% of unintended pregnanciesFinland: 1.02 typical gaps (standard deviations), 24.8% of unintended pregnanciesFrance: 0.907 typical gaps (standard deviations), 49.5% of unintended pregnanciesGabon: -0.00264 typical gaps (standard deviations), 36.8% of unintended pregnanciesUnited Kingdom: 1.19 typical gaps (standard deviations), 36.2% of unintended pregnanciesGeorgia: 0.697 typical gaps (standard deviations), 86.1% of unintended pregnanciesGhana: 0.168 typical gaps (standard deviations), 35.9% of unintended pregnanciesGuinea: -0.598 typical gaps (standard deviations), 38.1% of unintended pregnanciesGambia, The: -0.345 typical gaps (standard deviations), 31.1% of unintended pregnanciesGuinea-Bissau: -1.3 typical gaps (standard deviations), 58.5% of unintended pregnanciesGreece: 1.31 typical gaps (standard deviations), 45.8% of unintended pregnanciesGuatemala: 0.22 typical gaps (standard deviations), 30.1% of unintended pregnanciesGuyana: 0.39 typical gaps (standard deviations), 47.5% of unintended pregnanciesHong Kong SAR, China: 1.34 typical gaps (standard deviations), 46.1% of unintended pregnanciesHonduras: 0.0516 typical gaps (standard deviations), 30.6% of unintended pregnanciesCroatia: 0.985 typical gaps (standard deviations), 49.9% of unintended pregnanciesHungary: 0.83 typical gaps (standard deviations), 49.4% of unintended pregnanciesIndonesia: 0.591 typical gaps (standard deviations), 63% of unintended pregnanciesIndia: 0.605 typical gaps (standard deviations), 77.1% of unintended pregnanciesIceland: 1.26 typical gaps (standard deviations), 39.1% of unintended pregnanciesItaly: 0.94 typical gaps (standard deviations), 67.1% of unintended pregnanciesJamaica: 0.446 typical gaps (standard deviations), 43.9% of unintended pregnanciesJapan: 1.04 typical gaps (standard deviations), 30.1% of unintended pregnanciesKazakhstan: 0.74 typical gaps (standard deviations), 82.1% of unintended pregnanciesKenya: 0.0734 typical gaps (standard deviations), 38% of unintended pregnanciesKyrgyz Republic: 0.764 typical gaps (standard deviations), 79.2% of unintended pregnanciesCambodia: 0.174 typical gaps (standard deviations), 65.3% of unintended pregnanciesKorea, Rep.: 1.03 typical gaps (standard deviations), 61.9% of unintended pregnanciesLao PDR: -0.35 typical gaps (standard deviations), 68.3% of unintended pregnanciesLiberia: -1.22 typical gaps (standard deviations), 40.4% of unintended pregnanciesSt. Lucia: 0.462 typical gaps (standard deviations), 54.6% of unintended pregnanciesSri Lanka: 0.421 typical gaps (standard deviations), 72.3% of unintended pregnanciesLesotho: -0.337 typical gaps (standard deviations), 23.9% of unintended pregnanciesLithuania: 0.928 typical gaps (standard deviations), 27.7% of unintended pregnanciesLatvia: 0.923 typical gaps (standard deviations), 30.2% of unintended pregnanciesMoldova: 0.734 typical gaps (standard deviations), 70.6% of unintended pregnanciesMadagascar: -0.569 typical gaps (standard deviations), 62.8% of unintended pregnanciesMaldives: 0.427 typical gaps (standard deviations), 70.5% of unintended pregnanciesMexico: 0.636 typical gaps (standard deviations), 50.9% of unintended pregnanciesNorth Macedonia: 0.658 typical gaps (standard deviations), 63.4% of unintended pregnanciesMali: -1.24 typical gaps (standard deviations), 33.5% of unintended pregnanciesMyanmar: -0.0676 typical gaps (standard deviations), 74.2% of unintended pregnanciesMontenegro: 0.943 typical gaps (standard deviations), 54.2% of unintended pregnanciesMongolia: 0.749 typical gaps (standard deviations), 65.7% of unintended pregnanciesMozambique: -0.56 typical gaps (standard deviations), 46.7% of unintended pregnanciesMauritania: -0.911 typical gaps (standard deviations), 25.4% of unintended pregnanciesMalawi: -0.546 typical gaps (standard deviations), 27.4% of unintended pregnanciesNamibia: 0.228 typical gaps (standard deviations), 27.9% of unintended pregnanciesNiger: -1.04 typical gaps (standard deviations), 31.3% of unintended pregnanciesNigeria: -0.241 typical gaps (standard deviations), 48.2% of unintended pregnanciesNicaragua: 0.168 typical gaps (standard deviations), 27.5% of unintended pregnanciesNetherlands: 1.27 typical gaps (standard deviations), 40.8% of unintended pregnanciesNorway: 1 typical gaps (standard deviations), 31.7% of unintended pregnanciesNepal: 0.452 typical gaps (standard deviations), 69.4% of unintended pregnanciesNew Zealand: 1.44 typical gaps (standard deviations), 29.3% of unintended pregnanciesPakistan: -0.556 typical gaps (standard deviations), 60.9% of unintended pregnanciesPanama: 0.393 typical gaps (standard deviations), 41.3% of unintended pregnanciesPeru: 0.773 typical gaps (standard deviations), 47.5% of unintended pregnanciesPhilippines: 0.548 typical gaps (standard deviations), 50.5% of unintended pregnanciesPapua New Guinea: -0.297 typical gaps (standard deviations), 46.3% of unintended pregnanciesPoland: 0.952 typical gaps (standard deviations), 36.6% of unintended pregnanciesPuerto Rico (US): 0.956 typical gaps (standard deviations), 58.3% of unintended pregnanciesPortugal: 1.02 typical gaps (standard deviations), 32.4% of unintended pregnanciesParaguay: 0.452 typical gaps (standard deviations), 51% of unintended pregnanciesRomania: 0.584 typical gaps (standard deviations), 71.2% of unintended pregnanciesRussian Federation: 0.85 typical gaps (standard deviations), 71.8% of unintended pregnanciesRwanda: -0.127 typical gaps (standard deviations), 28.7% of unintended pregnanciesSenegal: -0.815 typical gaps (standard deviations), 25.1% of unintended pregnanciesSingapore: 1.26 typical gaps (standard deviations), 27.5% of unintended pregnanciesSolomon Islands: -0.0603 typical gaps (standard deviations), 28% of unintended pregnanciesSierra Leone: -0.279 typical gaps (standard deviations), 51.5% of unintended pregnanciesEl Salvador: 0.37 typical gaps (standard deviations), 41.5% of unintended pregnanciesSomalia, Fed. Rep.: -2.1 typical gaps (standard deviations), 29.2% of unintended pregnanciesSerbia: 0.761 typical gaps (standard deviations), 60.8% of unintended pregnanciesSao Tome and Principe: 0.172 typical gaps (standard deviations), 29.6% of unintended pregnanciesSuriname: -0.157 typical gaps (standard deviations), 46.5% of unintended pregnanciesSlovak Republic: 0.801 typical gaps (standard deviations), 26.2% of unintended pregnanciesSlovenia: 1.18 typical gaps (standard deviations), 24.4% of unintended pregnanciesSweden: 0.968 typical gaps (standard deviations), 48.3% of unintended pregnanciesEswatini: 0.404 typical gaps (standard deviations), 26.5% of unintended pregnanciesChad: -1.2 typical gaps (standard deviations), 29.5% of unintended pregnanciesTogo: 0.075 typical gaps (standard deviations), 32.2% of unintended pregnanciesThailand: 0.764 typical gaps (standard deviations), 64.4% of unintended pregnanciesTajikistan: 0.525 typical gaps (standard deviations), 71% of unintended pregnanciesTurkmenistan: 0.598 typical gaps (standard deviations), 83.4% of unintended pregnanciesTimor-Leste: 0.12 typical gaps (standard deviations), 67.8% of unintended pregnanciesTonga: 0.921 typical gaps (standard deviations), 52% of unintended pregnanciesTrinidad and Tobago: 0.581 typical gaps (standard deviations), 58% of unintended pregnanciesTanzania: -0.351 typical gaps (standard deviations), 35.9% of unintended pregnanciesUganda: -0.832 typical gaps (standard deviations), 29.7% of unintended pregnanciesUkraine: 0.784 typical gaps (standard deviations), 75.9% of unintended pregnanciesUruguay: 0.9 typical gaps (standard deviations), 27.6% of unintended pregnanciesUnited States: 1.11 typical gaps (standard deviations), 34.2% of unintended pregnanciesUzbekistan: 0.848 typical gaps (standard deviations), 80.2% of unintended pregnanciesViet Nam: 0.537 typical gaps (standard deviations), 74.5% of unintended pregnanciesVanuatu: 0.198 typical gaps (standard deviations), 45.4% of unintended pregnanciesSamoa: 0.515 typical gaps (standard deviations), 64.5% of unintended pregnanciesSouth Africa: 0.665 typical gaps (standard deviations), 36.6% of unintended pregnanciesZambia: -0.123 typical gaps (standard deviations), 28.2% of unintended pregnanciesZimbabwe: 0.181 typical gaps (standard deviations), 24.8% of unintended pregnanciesCAFCZEGEOGNBKAZLAONZLSOMSVNTCDUZB

best-fit line line after adjusting

Four ways to measure the link

MethodrpCountries
Standard (Pearson), not adjusted+0.2130.011141
By rank (Spearman), not adjusted+0.1360.108141
Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income+0.2120.012141
By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income+0.0820.333141

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 141 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: +0.001 (a minus sign means it grew).

How solid is it?

Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from +0.188 (without KGZ) to +0.234 (without GNB). 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: KGZ (-0.024).

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.

nr
East Asia & Pacific21-0.26
Europe & Central Asia43-0.38
Latin America & Caribbean25+0.11
Sub-Saharan Africa42-0.03

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 third47+0.26
Middle third47+0.25
Richest third47-0.27

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
Christians95+0.13
Muslims27+0.46

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
France20+0.41
Never a European colony16+0.49
Spain17+0.32
United Kingdom38+0.04

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 = +0.193 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


typical gaps (standard deviations)
% of unintended pregnancies		Years
New Zealand NZL1.4429.3%2023, 2019
Hong Kong SAR, China HKG1.3446.1%2024, 2019
Greece GRC1.3145.8%2023, 2019
Netherlands NLD1.2740.8%2023, 2019
Iceland ISL1.2639.1%2023, 2019
Singapore SGP1.2627.5%2023, 2019
Belgium BEL1.2537.1%2023, 2019
United Kingdom GBR1.1936.2%2023, 2019
Slovenia SVN1.1824.4%2023, 2019
United States USA1.1134.2%2022, 2019
Czechia CZE1.0819.7%2023, 2019
Canada CAN1.0636.8%2023, 2019
Japan JPN1.0430.1%2023, 2019
Argentina ARG1.0348.4%2023, 2019
Australia AUS1.0343.1%2024, 2019

uis; undp_hdr; wdi
Bearak, J. M., Popinchalk, A., Beavin, C. et al. (2022), 'Country-specific estimates of unintended pregnancy and abortion incidence: a global comparative analysis of levels in 2015-2019', BMJ Global Health 7(3), e007151. Guttmacher Institute. Supplementary appendix, tables A3-A5.

Sources

Education score

Education score

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.

Unintended pregnancies ending in abortion

Share of unintended pregnancies ending in abortion (model estimate, 2015-2019)

Guttmacher Institute (Bearak et al. 2022, BMJ Global Health) · CC BY-NC 4.0 · updated one edition (2015-2019 estimates, published 2022)

Of the unintended pregnancies in the abortion rate's model, the share that ended in abortion, averaged over 2015-2019 (Guttmacher Institute). The rest ended in a birth or a miscarriage. Like the other two, it is an estimate with a range. No "better" direction is set.

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 14,952 pairs at once, using the Benjamini–Hochberg method. Underlying data last updated DYB 2024. How the country data works · explore Education score and Unintended pregnancies ending in abortion

This page shows that two measures go together. It does not show that Education score changes Unintended pregnancies ending in abortion, or the reverse. These figures also describe countries, not individual people. See the ecological fallacy.

More links with Education score or Unintended pregnancies ending in abortion