placestats

Fertility rate vs. Out of school, primary

Fades after adjusting for income

Across 186 countries, Fertility rate and Out of school, primary rise and fall together at r = +0.55 (on a scale from −1 to +1, where 0 means no link). Comparing only countries with similar income (GDP per person) shrinks it to +0.30, which could easily be chance (q = 0.053, 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.

Comparing countries across the middle half of fertility rate, 1.44 to 3.09 births per woman, out of school, primary is worse by 8.44% of primary-age children at the top of that range than the bottom. Comparing only countries with similar national income, the gap is 7.28% of primary-age children.

Link before adjusting (r)+0.546p = 7.2e-16 · 186 countries
After adjusting for national income+0.304p = 2.5e-5 · likely range [+0.17, +0.43]
p, allowing for regions0.006standard error 0.072 · 7 regions
Check for luck (q)0.053across 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
Out of school, primary · % of primary-age childrenlink with income -0.45 · moderate

“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 →Out of school, primary · % of primary-age children →0.5826.030.00387%65.6%Aruba: 1.61 births per woman, 1.76% of primary-age childrenAngola: 5.05 births per woman, 36.8% of primary-age childrenAlbania: 1.34 births per woman, 0.488% of primary-age childrenAndorra: 1.09 births per woman, 2.41% of primary-age childrenUnited Arab Emirates: 1.21 births per woman, 0.00387% of primary-age childrenArgentina: 1.5 births per woman, 0.735% of primary-age childrenArmenia: 1.7 births per woman, 1.08% of primary-age childrenAntigua and Barbuda: 1.58 births per woman, 1.71% of primary-age childrenAustralia: 1.48 births per woman, 0.124% of primary-age childrenAustria: 1.31 births per woman, 1.43% of primary-age childrenAzerbaijan: 1.43 births per woman, 0.0266% of primary-age childrenBurundi: 4.79 births per woman, 26.5% of primary-age childrenBelgium: 1.44 births per woman, 1.66% of primary-age childrenBenin: 4.48 births per woman, 9.61% of primary-age childrenBurkina Faso: 4.11 births per woman, 34.3% of primary-age childrenBangladesh: 2.14 births per woman, 5.86% of primary-age childrenBulgaria: 1.72 births per woman, 5.9% of primary-age childrenBahrain: 1.8 births per woman, 4.75% of primary-age childrenBahamas, The: 1.37 births per woman, 15.9% of primary-age childrenBosnia and Herzegovina: 1.49 births per woman, 2.1% of primary-age childrenBelarus: 1.22 births per woman, 4.49% of primary-age childrenBelize: 2.02 births per woman, 10.7% of primary-age childrenBermuda: 1.41 births per woman, 3.41% of primary-age childrenBolivia: 2.52 births per woman, 9.25% of primary-age childrenBrazil: 1.61 births per woman, 2.19% of primary-age childrenBarbados: 1.71 births per woman, 17.6% of primary-age childrenBrunei Darussalam: 1.73 births per woman, 3.61% of primary-age childrenBhutan: 1.45 births per woman, 10.5% of primary-age childrenBotswana: 2.7 births per woman, 0.535% of primary-age childrenCentral African Republic: 5.95 births per woman, 37.9% of primary-age childrenCanada: 1.25 births per woman, 4.99% of primary-age childrenSwitzerland: 1.29 births per woman, 0.143% of primary-age childrenChile: 1.14 births per woman, 2.12% of primary-age childrenCote d'Ivoire: 4.23 births per woman, 12.6% of primary-age childrenCameroon: 4.26 births per woman, 3.76% of primary-age childrenCongo, Rep.: 4.11 births per woman, 17.1% of primary-age childrenColombia: 1.63 births per woman, 7.32% of primary-age childrenComoros: 3.82 births per woman, 20.6% of primary-age childrenCabo Verde: 1.51 births per woman, 41.8% of primary-age childrenCosta Rica: 1.32 births per woman, 4.49% of primary-age childrenCuracao: 1.4 births per woman, 27.9% of primary-age childrenCayman Islands: 1.52 births per woman, 5.17% of primary-age childrenCyprus: 1.38 births per woman, 0.425% of primary-age childrenCzechia: 1.36 births per woman, 0.809% of primary-age childrenGermany: 1.36 births per woman, 0.274% of primary-age childrenDominica: 1.48 births per woman, 3.95% of primary-age childrenDenmark: 1.47 births per woman, 0.893% of primary-age childrenDominican Republic: 2.22 births per woman, 4.93% of primary-age childrenAlgeria: 2.72 births per woman, 1.57% of primary-age childrenEcuador: 1.81 births per woman, 4.72% of primary-age childrenEgypt, Arab Rep.: 2.73 births per woman, 3.51% of primary-age childrenSpain: 1.1 births per woman, 1.24% of primary-age childrenEstonia: 1.18 births per woman, 3.39% of primary-age childrenEthiopia: 3.91 births per woman, 22.5% of primary-age childrenFinland: 1.25 births per woman, 1.77% of primary-age childrenFiji: 2.27 births per woman, 2.39% of primary-age childrenFrance: 1.61 births per woman, 0.204% of primary-age childrenMicronesia, Fed. Sts.: 2.74 births per woman, 23.1% of primary-age childrenGabon: 3.59 births per woman, 28.8% of primary-age childrenUnited Kingdom: 1.55 births per woman, 0.0698% of primary-age childrenGeorgia: 1.8 births per woman, 6.17% of primary-age childrenGhana: 3.34 births per woman, 4.77% of primary-age childrenGuinea: 4.13 births per woman, 14.7% of primary-age childrenGambia, The: 3.91 births per woman, 16.9% of primary-age childrenGuinea-Bissau: 3.76 births per woman, 30.5% of primary-age childrenEquatorial Guinea: 4.12 births per woman, 65.6% of primary-age childrenGreece: 1.24 births per woman, 0.11% of primary-age childrenGrenada: 1.47 births per woman, 4.94% of primary-age childrenGuatemala: 2.29 births per woman, 8.43% of primary-age childrenGuyana: 2.4 births per woman, 18% of primary-age childrenHong Kong SAR, China: 0.841 births per woman, 1.4% of primary-age childrenHonduras: 2.48 births per woman, 26.6% of primary-age childrenCroatia: 1.46 births per woman, 1.81% of primary-age childrenHungary: 1.41 births per woman, 2.81% of primary-age childrenIndonesia: 2.12 births per woman, 0.877% of primary-age childrenIndia: 1.96 births per woman, 0.119% of primary-age childrenIreland: 1.47 births per woman, 1.81% of primary-age childrenIran, Islamic Rep.: 1.68 births per woman, 0.103% of primary-age childrenIceland: 1.56 births per woman, 1.82% of primary-age childrenIsrael: 2.87 births per woman, 2.66% of primary-age childrenItaly: 1.18 births per woman, 2.06% of primary-age childrenJamaica: 1.35 births per woman, 4.34% of primary-age childrenJordan: 2.6 births per woman, 1.89% of primary-age childrenJapan: 1.15 births per woman, 0.0684% of primary-age childrenKazakhstan: 2.98 births per woman, 7.91% of primary-age childrenKenya: 3.17 births per woman, 32.9% of primary-age childrenKyrgyz Republic: 2.6 births per woman, 2.96% of primary-age childrenCambodia: 2.55 births per woman, 3.69% of primary-age childrenKiribati: 3.12 births per woman, 8.71% of primary-age childrenKorea, Rep.: 0.748 births per woman, 0.0557% of primary-age childrenKuwait: 1.56 births per woman, 7.47% of primary-age childrenLao PDR: 2.4 births per woman, 10.4% of primary-age childrenLebanon: 2.23 births per woman, 22.5% of primary-age childrenLiberia: 3.86 births per woman, 38.3% of primary-age childrenSt. Lucia: 1.39 births per woman, 7.01% of primary-age childrenSri Lanka: 1.95 births per woman, 9.14% of primary-age childrenLesotho: 2.66 births per woman, 32.2% of primary-age childrenLithuania: 1.11 births per woman, 0.13% of primary-age childrenLuxembourg: 1.25 births per woman, 0.256% of primary-age childrenLatvia: 1.24 births per woman, 2.74% of primary-age childrenMacao SAR, China: 0.582 births per woman, 10.8% of primary-age childrenMorocco: 2.21 births per woman, 0.471% of primary-age childrenMoldova: 1.73 births per woman, 0.463% of primary-age childrenMadagascar: 3.91 births per woman, 3.4% of primary-age childrenMaldives: 1.56 births per woman, 0.946% of primary-age childrenMexico: 1.89 births per woman, 0.363% of primary-age childrenMarshall Islands: 2.86 births per woman, 1.48% of primary-age childrenNorth Macedonia: 1.4 births per woman, 3.79% of primary-age childrenMali: 5.51 births per woman, 34% of primary-age childrenMalta: 1.01 births per woman, 2.64% of primary-age childrenMyanmar: 2.1 births per woman, 1.41% of primary-age childrenMontenegro: 1.8 births per woman, 0.218% of primary-age childrenMongolia: 2.5 births per woman, 8.56% of primary-age childrenMozambique: 4.69 births per woman, 1% of primary-age childrenMauritania: 4.63 births per woman, 11.3% of primary-age childrenMauritius: 1.44 births per woman, 0.785% of primary-age childrenMalawi: 3.59 births per woman, 2.09% of primary-age childrenMalaysia: 1.54 births per woman, 12% of primary-age childrenNamibia: 3.21 births per woman, 0.865% of primary-age childrenNiger: 5.93 births per woman, 40.4% of primary-age childrenNigeria: 4.38 births per woman, 24.3% of primary-age childrenNicaragua: 2.21 births per woman, 6.66% of primary-age childrenNetherlands: 1.43 births per woman, 0.519% of primary-age childrenNorway: 1.45 births per woman, 1.38% of primary-age childrenNepal: 1.96 births per woman, 0.762% of primary-age childrenNaoero: 3.29 births per woman, 6.6% of primary-age childrenNew Zealand: 1.57 births per woman, 2.62% of primary-age childrenOman: 2.51 births per woman, 5.76% of primary-age childrenPakistan: 3.55 births per woman, 17.9% of primary-age childrenPanama: 2.11 births per woman, 7.7% of primary-age childrenPeru: 1.97 births per woman, 0.156% of primary-age childrenPhilippines: 1.89 births per woman, 11.6% of primary-age childrenPalau: 1.88 births per woman, 1.33% of primary-age childrenPapua New Guinea: 3.07 births per woman, 4% of primary-age childrenPoland: 1.14 births per woman, 0.0917% of primary-age childrenPuerto Rico (US): 0.92 births per woman, 13.3% of primary-age childrenPortugal: 1.41 births per woman, 0.508% of primary-age childrenParaguay: 2.42 births per woman, 13.3% of primary-age childrenWest Bank and Gaza: 3.25 births per woman, 9.56% of primary-age childrenQatar: 1.72 births per woman, 4.62% of primary-age childrenRomania: 1.39 births per woman, 15.6% of primary-age childrenRussian Federation: 1.42 births per woman, 4.94% of primary-age childrenRwanda: 3.65 births per woman, 0.97% of primary-age childrenSaudi Arabia: 2.31 births per woman, 0.527% of primary-age childrenSudan: 4.26 births per woman, 43.8% of primary-age childrenSenegal: 3.77 births per woman, 24.5% of primary-age childrenSingapore: 0.97 births per woman, 0.212% of primary-age childrenSolomon Islands: 3.51 births per woman, 30.1% of primary-age childrenSierra Leone: 3.7 births per woman, 0.888% of primary-age childrenEl Salvador: 1.77 births per woman, 8.66% of primary-age childrenSan Marino: 1.16 births per woman, 6.13% of primary-age childrenSerbia: 1.64 births per woman, 3.33% of primary-age childrenSao Tome and Principe: 3.6 births per woman, 2.88% of primary-age childrenSuriname: 2.23 births per woman, 16.2% of primary-age childrenSlovak Republic: 1.46 births per woman, 1.06% of primary-age childrenSlovenia: 1.52 births per woman, 1.45% of primary-age childrenSweden: 1.43 births per woman, 0.57% of primary-age childrenEswatini: 2.72 births per woman, 3.83% of primary-age childrenSint Maarten (Dutch part): 1.44 births per woman, 6.78% of primary-age childrenSeychelles: 1.85 births per woman, 6.8% of primary-age childrenSyrian Arab Republic: 2.7 births per woman, 21.8% of primary-age childrenTurks and Caicos Islands: 1.45 births per woman, 0.133% of primary-age childrenChad: 6.03 births per woman, 24.8% of primary-age childrenTogo: 4.12 births per woman, 0.639% of primary-age childrenThailand: 1.2 births per woman, 0.817% of primary-age childrenTajikistan: 3.04 births per woman, 4.15% of primary-age childrenTurkmenistan: 2.66 births per woman, 4.31% of primary-age childrenTimor-Leste: 2.63 births per woman, 6.88% of primary-age childrenTonga: 3.1 births per woman, 2.28% of primary-age childrenTrinidad and Tobago: 1.54 births per woman, 7.16% of primary-age childrenTunisia: 1.82 births per woman, 1.09% of primary-age childrenTurkiye: 1.48 births per woman, 0.603% of primary-age childrenTuvalu: 3.17 births per woman, 0.537% of primary-age childrenTanzania: 4.54 births per woman, 16.4% of primary-age childrenUganda: 4.17 births per woman, 4.12% of primary-age childrenUkraine: 0.988 births per woman, 12.9% of primary-age childrenUruguay: 1.4 births per woman, 0.0355% of primary-age childrenUnited States: 1.63 births per woman, 3.98% of primary-age childrenUzbekistan: 3.49 births per woman, 0.655% of primary-age childrenSt. Vincent and the Grenadines: 1.76 births per woman, 0.59% of primary-age childrenViet Nam: 1.9 births per woman, 1.73% of primary-age childrenVanuatu: 3.57 births per woman, 2.53% of primary-age childrenSamoa: 3.8 births per woman, 1.81% of primary-age childrenSouth Africa: 2.21 births per woman, 6.06% of primary-age childrenZambia: 4.04 births per woman, 3.51% of primary-age childrenZimbabwe: 3.67 births per woman, 10.5% of primary-age childrenCAFCMRCPVCUWGNQHKGKORMOZNERSGPTGO

best-fit line line after adjusting

Four ways to measure the link

MethodrpCountries
Standard (Pearson), not adjusted+0.5467.2e-16186
By rank (Spearman), not adjusted+0.4632.9e-11186
Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income+0.3042.5e-5186
By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income+0.1860.011186

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 186 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: +0.242 (a minus sign means it grew).

How solid is it?

Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from +0.254 (without GNQ) to +0.351 (without CPV). 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: GNQ (-0.050).

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.

nr
East Asia & Pacific30-0.10
Europe & Central Asia50-0.07
Latin America & Caribbean35+0.28
Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan18+0.10
Sub-Saharan Africa44+0.26

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 third62+0.21
Middle third62+0.45
Richest third62+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.

nr
Christians109+0.20
Muslims44+0.44

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
France23+0.40
Never a European colony19+0.42
Spain20+0.84
United Kingdom59+0.13

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 = +0.122 after dropping 20 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 shows up within countries over time (r = +0.248) but mostly disappears in year-to-year changes (r = +0.013). That points to slow trends particular to each country, not the two measures moving together from year to year.

Across countries (adjusted)+0.304for comparison
Within countries+0.481each country vs itself
…and vs the same year elsewhere+0.248q = 0.000 · 187 countries
Year-on-year changes+0.013q = 0.727
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.
  • Much of the within-country association disappears once shared global year effects are removed, which points to a common worldwide trend rather than a country-level relationship.
  • The association is much weaker in year-on-year changes than in levels, which points to shared country-specific trends.

3,719 country-years (one country in one year), 187 countries, 1990–2024, about 20 years each on average. Share of the variation that happens within countries over time: 9% for Fertility rate, 26% for Out of school, primary. 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

0.40−0.4-100+10years Out of school, primary trails Fertility rate →lag -10: r = 0.368 (n = 2,265)lag -9: r = 0.375 (n = 2,417)lag -8: r = 0.383 (n = 2,551)lag -7: r = 0.382 (n = 2,710)lag -6: r = 0.375 (n = 2,867)lag -5: r = 0.362 (n = 3,016)lag -4: r = 0.345 (n = 3,168)lag -3: r = 0.318 (n = 3,316)lag -2: r = 0.288 (n = 3,463)lag -1: r = 0.265 (n = 3,604)lag +0: r = 0.248 (n = 3,719)lag +1: r = 0.232 (n = 3,687)lag +2: r = 0.212 (n = 3,648)lag +3: r = 0.194 (n = 3,601)lag +4: r = 0.176 (n = 3,558)lag +5: r = 0.149 (n = 3,508)lag +6: r = 0.131 (n = 3,469)lag +7: r = 0.108 (n = 3,426)lag +8: r = 0.096 (n = 3,387)lag +9: r = 0.087 (n = 3,341)lag +10: r = 0.064 (n = 3,254)

Same year (lag 0): +0.248. 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 (+0.38 at lag -8) is higher than the same-year one by 0.14. 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 primary-age children		Years
Chad TCD6.0324.8%2024
Central African Republic CAF5.9537.9%2024, 2012
Niger NER5.9340.4%2024
Mali MLI5.5134%2024, 2023
Angola AGO5.0536.8%2024, 2023
Burundi BDI4.7926.5%2024, 2025
Mozambique MOZ4.691%2024, 2022
Mauritania MRT4.6311.3%2024
Tanzania TZA4.5416.4%2024
Benin BEN4.489.61%2024, 2022
Nigeria NGA4.3824.3%2024, 2023
Sudan SDN4.2643.8%2024, 2019
Cameroon CMR4.263.76%2024
Cote d'Ivoire CIV4.2312.6%2024
Uganda UGA4.174.12%2024, 2013

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

Out of school, primary

Children out of school (% of primary school age)

UNESCO Institute for Statistics · CC BY 4.0 · updated quarterly

Children of primary-school age not enrolled at any level. Treated as measuring the same thing as gross primary enrolment, which is on the site. They are two ways of asking whether children are in school, so their agreement is not a finding.

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 Fertility rate and Out of school, primary

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

More links with Fertility rate or Out of school, primary