placestats

Fertility rate vs. Internet users

Holds up after adjusting for income

Across 197 countries, Fertility rate and Internet users rise and fall together at r = -0.82 (on a scale from −1 to +1, where 0 means no link). Comparing only countries with similar income (GDP per person) shrinks it to -0.40 (q = 0.0051, allowing for the many pairs tested). Much of the first figure is that both measures rise with national income, but a weak negative link remains.

Comparing countries across the middle half of fertility rate, 1.45 to 3.12 births per woman, internet users is worse by 29.5% of population at the top of that range than the bottom. Comparing only countries with similar national income, the gap is 12.8% of population.

Link before adjusting (r)-0.825p = 3.3e-50 · 197 countries
After adjusting for national income-0.398p = 7.6e-9 · likely range [-0.51, -0.27]
p, allowing for regions9.7e-5standard error 0.044 · 7 regions
Check for luck (q)0.005across 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.

Fertility rate · births per womanlink with income -0.81 · proxy
Internet users · % of populationlink with income +0.85 · 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

Fertility rate · births per woman →Internet users · % of population →0.5826.038.6%100%Aruba: 1.61 births per woman, 97.2% of populationAfghanistan: 4.76 births per woman, 16.1% of populationAngola: 5.05 births per woman, 40.7% of populationAlbania: 1.34 births per woman, 85.9% of populationAndorra: 1.09 births per woman, 94.4% of populationUnited Arab Emirates: 1.21 births per woman, 100% of populationArgentina: 1.5 births per woman, 89.7% of populationArmenia: 1.7 births per woman, 81.3% of populationAntigua and Barbuda: 1.58 births per woman, 72.7% of populationAustralia: 1.48 births per woman, 96.1% of populationAustria: 1.31 births per woman, 91.9% of populationAzerbaijan: 1.43 births per woman, 90.8% of populationBurundi: 4.79 births per woman, 8.6% of populationBelgium: 1.44 births per woman, 95.8% of populationBenin: 4.48 births per woman, 34% of populationBurkina Faso: 4.11 births per woman, 28.3% of populationBangladesh: 2.14 births per woman, 53.4% of populationBulgaria: 1.72 births per woman, 82.4% of populationBahrain: 1.8 births per woman, 100% of populationBahamas, The: 1.37 births per woman, 92.5% of populationBosnia and Herzegovina: 1.49 births per woman, 86.1% of populationBelarus: 1.22 births per woman, 94.3% of populationBelize: 2.02 births per woman, 80% of populationBermuda: 1.41 births per woman, 98.4% of populationBolivia: 2.52 births per woman, 79.7% of populationBrazil: 1.61 births per woman, 84.5% of populationBarbados: 1.71 births per woman, 70.4% of populationBrunei Darussalam: 1.73 births per woman, 96.3% of populationBhutan: 1.45 births per woman, 91.3% of populationBotswana: 2.7 births per woman, 57.5% of populationCentral African Republic: 5.95 births per woman, 13.8% of populationCanada: 1.25 births per woman, 94.4% of populationSwitzerland: 1.29 births per woman, 97.3% of populationChile: 1.14 births per woman, 95.6% of populationChina: 1.01 births per woman, 91.6% of populationCote d'Ivoire: 4.23 births per woman, 41.4% of populationCameroon: 4.26 births per woman, 46.3% of populationCongo, Dem. Rep.: 5.98 births per woman, 19.7% of populationCongo, Rep.: 4.11 births per woman, 47.3% of populationColombia: 1.63 births per woman, 79.3% of populationComoros: 3.82 births per woman, 32.5% of populationCabo Verde: 1.51 births per woman, 74.7% of populationCosta Rica: 1.32 births per woman, 87.2% of populationCuracao: 1.4 births per woman, 68.1% of populationCayman Islands: 1.52 births per woman, 81.1% of populationCyprus: 1.38 births per woman, 89.6% of populationCzechia: 1.36 births per woman, 87.7% of populationGermany: 1.36 births per woman, 93.5% of populationDjibouti: 2.62 births per woman, 65.3% of populationDominica: 1.48 births per woman, 82% of populationDenmark: 1.47 births per woman, 99.8% of populationDominican Republic: 2.22 births per woman, 91% of populationAlgeria: 2.72 births per woman, 77.4% of populationEcuador: 1.81 births per woman, 77.2% of populationEgypt, Arab Rep.: 2.73 births per woman, 74.6% of populationSpain: 1.1 births per woman, 95.8% of populationEstonia: 1.18 births per woman, 92.2% of populationEthiopia: 3.91 births per woman, 21.9% of populationFinland: 1.25 births per woman, 93.7% of populationFiji: 2.27 births per woman, 74.7% of populationFrance: 1.61 births per woman, 88.7% of populationFaroe Islands: 1.91 births per woman, 97.6% of populationMicronesia, Fed. Sts.: 2.74 births per woman, 39.5% of populationGabon: 3.59 births per woman, 68.7% of populationUnited Kingdom: 1.55 births per woman, 95.5% of populationGeorgia: 1.8 births per woman, 83.8% of populationGhana: 3.34 births per woman, 72.2% of populationGuinea: 4.13 births per woman, 33.3% of populationGambia, The: 3.91 births per woman, 49.5% of populationGuinea-Bissau: 3.76 births per woman, 29.8% of populationEquatorial Guinea: 4.12 births per woman, 63.3% of populationGreece: 1.24 births per woman, 86.3% of populationGrenada: 1.47 births per woman, 70.2% of populationGreenland: 1.71 births per woman, 69.5% of populationGuatemala: 2.29 births per woman, 60.2% of populationGuyana: 2.4 births per woman, 83% of populationHong Kong SAR, China: 0.841 births per woman, 95.8% of populationHonduras: 2.48 births per woman, 58.6% of populationCroatia: 1.46 births per woman, 83.6% of populationHaiti: 2.63 births per woman, 47.9% of populationHungary: 1.41 births per woman, 93.8% of populationIndonesia: 2.12 births per woman, 72.8% of populationIndia: 1.96 births per woman, 70% of populationIreland: 1.47 births per woman, 97.2% of populationIran, Islamic Rep.: 1.68 births per woman, 85.3% of populationIraq: 3.22 births per woman, 81.5% of populationIceland: 1.56 births per woman, 98.2% of populationIsrael: 2.87 births per woman, 88.2% of populationItaly: 1.18 births per woman, 89.2% of populationJamaica: 1.35 births per woman, 90.1% of populationJordan: 2.6 births per woman, 95.6% of populationJapan: 1.15 births per woman, 85.5% of populationKazakhstan: 2.98 births per woman, 93.4% of populationKenya: 3.17 births per woman, 35% of populationKyrgyz Republic: 2.6 births per woman, 92% of populationCambodia: 2.55 births per woman, 68.5% of populationKiribati: 3.12 births per woman, 89.4% of populationSt. Kitts and Nevis: 1.53 births per woman, 76.9% of populationKorea, Rep.: 0.748 births per woman, 97.9% of populationKuwait: 1.56 births per woman, 100% of populationLao PDR: 2.4 births per woman, 65.6% of populationLebanon: 2.23 births per woman, 80.6% of populationLiberia: 3.86 births per woman, 32.2% of populationLibya: 2.3 births per woman, 82% of populationSt. Lucia: 1.39 births per woman, 68.2% of populationSri Lanka: 1.95 births per woman, 54.6% of populationLesotho: 2.66 births per woman, 51.8% of populationLithuania: 1.11 births per woman, 89.2% of populationLuxembourg: 1.25 births per woman, 99.1% of populationLatvia: 1.24 births per woman, 92.7% of populationMacao SAR, China: 0.582 births per woman, 89.8% of populationMorocco: 2.21 births per woman, 91.2% of populationMoldova: 1.73 births per woman, 77.4% of populationMadagascar: 3.91 births per woman, 18.7% of populationMaldives: 1.56 births per woman, 85.2% of populationMexico: 1.89 births per woman, 83.1% of populationMarshall Islands: 2.86 births per woman, 65.9% of populationNorth Macedonia: 1.4 births per woman, 93.1% of populationMali: 5.51 births per woman, 36.8% of populationMalta: 1.01 births per woman, 93.9% of populationMyanmar: 2.1 births per woman, 45.4% of populationMontenegro: 1.8 births per woman, 88.9% of populationMongolia: 2.5 births per woman, 85.1% of populationMozambique: 4.69 births per woman, 20.5% of populationMauritania: 4.63 births per woman, 45.8% of populationMauritius: 1.44 births per woman, 73.3% of populationMalawi: 3.59 births per woman, 19% of populationMalaysia: 1.54 births per woman, 98% of populationNamibia: 3.21 births per woman, 64.9% of populationNiger: 5.93 births per woman, 15.6% of populationNigeria: 4.38 births per woman, 41.2% of populationNicaragua: 2.21 births per woman, 61.4% of populationNetherlands: 1.43 births per woman, 97% of populationNorway: 1.45 births per woman, 99% of populationNepal: 1.96 births per woman, 46.3% of populationNaoero: 3.29 births per woman, 83% of populationNew Zealand: 1.57 births per woman, 93.5% of populationOman: 2.51 births per woman, 95.3% of populationPakistan: 3.55 births per woman, 57.3% of populationPanama: 2.11 births per woman, 72.8% of populationPeru: 1.97 births per woman, 82% of populationPhilippines: 1.89 births per woman, 67.3% of populationPalau: 1.88 births per woman, 83.9% of populationPapua New Guinea: 3.07 births per woman, 18.8% of populationPoland: 1.14 births per woman, 88.6% of populationPuerto Rico (US): 0.92 births per woman, 87.3% of populationPortugal: 1.41 births per woman, 88.5% of populationParaguay: 2.42 births per woman, 81.6% of populationWest Bank and Gaza: 3.25 births per woman, 86.6% of populationQatar: 1.72 births per woman, 98.1% of populationRomania: 1.39 births per woman, 91.3% of populationRussian Federation: 1.42 births per woman, 94.4% of populationRwanda: 3.65 births per woman, 31.7% of populationSaudi Arabia: 2.31 births per woman, 100% of populationSudan: 4.26 births per woman, 18.6% of populationSenegal: 3.77 births per woman, 60.1% of populationSingapore: 0.97 births per woman, 94.4% of populationSolomon Islands: 3.51 births per woman, 29% of populationSierra Leone: 3.7 births per woman, 25.1% of populationEl Salvador: 1.77 births per woman, 66.5% of populationSan Marino: 1.16 births per woman, 97.4% of populationSomalia, Fed. Rep.: 6.01 births per woman, 27.9% of populationSerbia: 1.64 births per woman, 87.7% of populationSao Tome and Principe: 3.6 births per woman, 59.1% of populationSuriname: 2.23 births per woman, 87.4% of populationSlovak Republic: 1.46 births per woman, 89.8% of populationSlovenia: 1.52 births per woman, 90.8% of populationSweden: 1.43 births per woman, 95.8% of populationEswatini: 2.72 births per woman, 63.4% of populationSeychelles: 1.85 births per woman, 87.8% of populationSyrian Arab Republic: 2.7 births per woman, 33.8% of populationChad: 6.03 births per woman, 12.6% of populationTogo: 4.12 births per woman, 39.5% of populationThailand: 1.2 births per woman, 90.9% of populationTajikistan: 3.04 births per woman, 55.8% of populationTurkmenistan: 2.66 births per woman, 18% of populationTimor-Leste: 2.63 births per woman, 35% of populationTonga: 3.1 births per woman, 67.4% of populationTrinidad and Tobago: 1.54 births per woman, 82.2% of populationTunisia: 1.82 births per woman, 76.5% of populationTurkiye: 1.48 births per woman, 89.8% of populationTuvalu: 3.17 births per woman, 35.2% of populationTanzania: 4.54 births per woman, 31.2% of populationUganda: 4.17 births per woman, 8.95% of populationUkraine: 0.988 births per woman, 82.5% of populationUruguay: 1.4 births per woman, 92% of populationUnited States: 1.63 births per woman, 94.7% of populationUzbekistan: 3.49 births per woman, 89.5% of populationSt. Vincent and the Grenadines: 1.76 births per woman, 76.2% of populationVirgin Islands (U.S.): 1.97 births per woman, 64.4% of populationViet Nam: 1.9 births per woman, 84.2% of populationVanuatu: 3.57 births per woman, 22.4% of populationSamoa: 3.8 births per woman, 21.2% of populationKosovo: 1.54 births per woman, 89.4% of populationSouth Africa: 2.21 births per woman, 78.4% of populationZambia: 4.04 births per woman, 17.1% of populationZimbabwe: 3.67 births per woman, 41.6% of populationCAFHKGKAZKORMACNERNPLPNGSOMTCDTKMUZB

best-fit line line after adjusting

Four ways to measure the link

MethodrpCountries
Standard (Pearson), not adjusted-0.8253.3e-50197
By rank (Spearman), not adjusted-0.7681.2e-39197
Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income-0.3987.6e-9197
By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income-0.2410.001197

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 197 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: +0.427 (a minus sign means it grew).

How solid is it?

Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from -0.415 (without UZB) to -0.383 (without TCD). 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: UZB (-0.017).

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 & Pacific31-0.26
Europe & Central Asia53-0.23
Latin America & Caribbean36-0.28
Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan22-0.32
Sub-Saharan Africa46-0.36

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 third66-0.36
Middle third65-0.27
Richest third66-0.12

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
Christians112-0.49
Muslims50-0.40

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
France25-0.62
Never a European colony21-0.20
Spain20-0.31
United Kingdom63-0.32

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 = -0.382 after dropping 5 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 35years. 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 = +0.423). It holds even when looking only at changes from one year to the next (r = +0.127). 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)-0.398for comparison
Within countries-0.462each country vs itself
…and vs the same year elsewhere+0.423q = 0.000 · 208 countries
Year-on-year changes+0.127q = 0.000
The direction flips. Comparing each country only with itself gives -0.46. Also taking out what happened to the whole world each year gives +0.42. 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.
  • The association is much weaker in year-on-year changes than in levels, which points to shared country-specific trends.

6,207 country-years (one country in one year), 208 countries, 1990–2024, about 30 years each on average. Share of the variation that happens within countries over time: 10% for Fertility rate, 69% for Internet users. 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 Internet users trails Fertility rate →lag -10: r = 0.475 (n = 4,317)lag -9: r = 0.488 (n = 4,517)lag -8: r = 0.497 (n = 4,723)lag -7: r = 0.497 (n = 4,920)lag -6: r = 0.496 (n = 5,101)lag -5: r = 0.494 (n = 5,294)lag -4: r = 0.485 (n = 5,478)lag -3: r = 0.473 (n = 5,658)lag -2: r = 0.458 (n = 5,844)lag -1: r = 0.442 (n = 6,025)lag +0: r = 0.423 (n = 6,207)lag +1: r = 0.397 (n = 6,012)lag +2: r = 0.370 (n = 5,973)lag +3: r = 0.342 (n = 5,923)lag +4: r = 0.311 (n = 5,858)lag +5: r = 0.272 (n = 5,767)lag +6: r = 0.224 (n = 5,629)lag +7: r = 0.172 (n = 5,458)lag +8: r = 0.115 (n = 5,277)lag +9: r = 0.052 (n = 5,090)lag +10: r = -0.016 (n = 4,896)

Same year (lag 0): +0.423. 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 (+0.50 at lag -7) is higher than the same-year one by 0.07. 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


births per woman
% of population		Years
Chad TCD6.0312.6%2024
Somalia, Fed. Rep. SOM6.0127.9%2024
Congo, Dem. Rep. COD5.9819.7%2024
Central African Republic CAF5.9513.8%2024
Niger NER5.9315.6%2024
Mali MLI5.5136.8%2024
Angola AGO5.0540.7%2024
Burundi BDI4.798.6%2024
Afghanistan AFG4.7616.1%2024
Mozambique MOZ4.6920.5%2024
Mauritania MRT4.6345.8%2024
Tanzania TZA4.5431.2%2024
Benin BEN4.4834%2024
Nigeria NGA4.3841.2%2024
Sudan SDN4.2618.6%2024, 2017

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

Sources

Fertility rate

Fertility rate, total (births per woman)

World Bank · CC BY 4.0 · updated quarterly

Internet users

Individuals using the Internet (% of population)

International Telecommunication Union · CC BY 4.0 · updated quarterly

How this was computed

Data used: most recent value in 2010-2025; values come from 2014–2025. 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 Fertility rate and Internet users

This page shows that two measures go together. It does not show that Fertility rate changes Internet users, or the reverse. These figures also describe countries, not individual people. See the ecological fallacy.

More links with Fertility rate or Internet users