Across 159 countries, Equality score and Women in a union rise and fall together at r = +0.07 (on a scale from −1 to +1, where 0 means no link). There is almost no link to explain.
Comparing countries across the middle half of women in a union, 52.2% to 63% of women aged 15-49, equality score is better by 0.0715 typical gaps at the top of that range than the bottom. Comparing only countries with similar national income, the gap is 0.356 typical gaps.
Link before adjusting (r)+0.072p = 0.365 · 159 countries
After adjusting for national income+0.446p = 4.5e-9 · likely range [+0.31, +0.56]
p, allowing for regions0.001standard error 0.067 · 7 regions
Check for luck (q)0.024across 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.
Equality score · typical gaps (standard deviations)link with income +0.64 · high
Women in a union · % of women aged 15-49link with income -0.44 · 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
+0.072
0.365
159
By rank (Spearman), not adjusted
+0.014
0.860
159
Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income
+0.446
4.5e-9
159
By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income
+0.400
1.9e-7
159
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 159 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: -0.373 (a minus sign means it grew).
How solid is it?
Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from +0.415 (without SWZ) to +0.466 (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: SWZ (-0.031).
Fragile: this link may not hold up.
direction is not consistent across regions
much weaker within regions than across them (largely a between-region difference)
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
21
-0.05
Europe & Central Asia
47
-0.03
Latin America & Caribbean
23
-0.08
Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan
15
+0.42
Sub-Saharan Africa
45
+0.47
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
53
+0.34
Middle third
53
+0.66
Richest third
53
+0.15
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
101
+0.39
Muslims
39
-0.04
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
+0.41
Never a European colony
16
+0.24
Spain
19
+0.16
United Kingdom
47
+0.54
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 = +0.391 after dropping 10 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 women aged 15-49
Years
Slovak Republic SVK
1.06
49.2%
2023
Belarus BLR
1.04
62.4%
2020, 2019
Slovenia SVN
1.02
47.2%
2023, 2021
Kiribati KIR
0.995
67.4%
2023, 2020
Ukraine UKR
0.967
61.9%
2020, 2012
Czechia CZE
0.961
53.7%
2023, 2021
Netherlands NLD
0.958
53.5%
2021, 2023
United Arab Emirates ARE
0.921
67.4%
2018
Norway NOR
0.91
57.4%
2023, 2021
Moldova MDA
0.895
68.7%
2023, 2020
Iceland ISL
0.895
48.5%
2019, 2023
Belgium BEL
0.895
52.4%
2023, 2021
Tonga TON
0.87
50.7%
2021
Finland FIN
0.858
57.1%
2023
Algeria DZA
0.852
55.5%
2011, 2019
wdi United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division: World Population Prospects 2024 and Estimates and Projections of Women of Reproductive Age Who Are Married or in a Union
PlaceStats · via PlaceStats · Derived work; each member keeps its own licence · updated recomputed with the panel
The average of 2 measures from 1 publisher. 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: Extreme poverty rate, Gini index.
Share of women aged 15 to 49 who are married or in a union
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division · via Our World in Data · CC BY 3.0 IGO · updated biennial
A snapshot of how many women are in a union at one time, not a count of new unions each year. It counts couples living together as a union, which the OECD marriage rate does not. So the two can disagree without either being wrong, and their pair is worth reading for exactly that. The UN estimates it with a statistical model from survey and census data, for over two hundred countries. 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 12,497 pairs at once, using the Benjamini–Hochberg method. Underlying data last updated DYB 2024. How the country data works · explore Equality score and Women in a union
This page shows that two measures go together. It does not show that Equality score changes Women in a union, or the reverse. These figures also describe countries, not individual people. See the ecological fallacy.
More links with Equality score or Women in a union