placestats

Fertility rate vs. Vulnerable employment

Fades after adjusting for income

Across 177 countries, Fertility rate and Vulnerable employment rise and fall together at r = +0.75 (on a scale from −1 to +1, where 0 means no link). Comparing only countries with similar income (GDP per person) shrinks it to +0.15, which could easily be chance (q = 0.51, 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: direction is not consistent across regions.

Comparing countries across the middle half of fertility rate, 1.45 to 3.22 births per woman, vulnerable employment is worse by 27.4% of employment at the top of that range than the bottom. Comparing only countries with similar national income, the gap is 5.22% of employment.

Link before adjusting (r)+0.750p = 2.8e-33 · 177 countries
After adjusting for national income+0.153p = 0.043 · likely range [+0.00, +0.29]
p, allowing for regions0.303standard error 0.136 · 7 regions
Check for luck (q)0.509across 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
Vulnerable employment · % of employmentlink with income -0.87 · 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 →Vulnerable employment · % of employment →0.5826.030.456%90.2%Afghanistan: 4.76 births per woman, 81.8% of employmentAngola: 5.05 births per woman, 66.3% of employmentAlbania: 1.34 births per woman, 46% of employmentUnited Arab Emirates: 1.21 births per woman, 1.5% of employmentArgentina: 1.5 births per woman, 22.3% of employmentArmenia: 1.7 births per woman, 32.8% of employmentAustralia: 1.48 births per woman, 9.12% of employmentAustria: 1.31 births per woman, 7.85% of employmentAzerbaijan: 1.43 births per woman, 53.8% of employmentBurundi: 4.79 births per woman, 83.7% of employmentBelgium: 1.44 births per woman, 11% of employmentBenin: 4.48 births per woman, 78.5% of employmentBurkina Faso: 4.11 births per woman, 80.6% of employmentBangladesh: 2.14 births per woman, 57.3% of employmentBulgaria: 1.72 births per woman, 6.92% of employmentBahrain: 1.8 births per woman, 0.749% of employmentBahamas, The: 1.37 births per woman, 15.9% of employmentBosnia and Herzegovina: 1.49 births per woman, 18.1% of employmentBelarus: 1.22 births per woman, 6.33% of employmentBelize: 2.02 births per woman, 29.8% of employmentBolivia: 2.52 births per woman, 62.7% of employmentBrazil: 1.61 births per woman, 26.1% of employmentBarbados: 1.71 births per woman, 18.8% of employmentBrunei Darussalam: 1.73 births per woman, 4.48% of employmentBhutan: 1.45 births per woman, 69% of employmentBotswana: 2.7 births per woman, 25.6% of employmentCentral African Republic: 5.95 births per woman, 79.4% of employmentCanada: 1.25 births per woman, 9.56% of employmentSwitzerland: 1.29 births per woman, 9.6% of employmentChile: 1.14 births per woman, 20.9% of employmentChina: 1.01 births per woman, 33.4% of employmentCote d'Ivoire: 4.23 births per woman, 69.4% of employmentCameroon: 4.26 births per woman, 67.6% of employmentCongo, Dem. Rep.: 5.98 births per woman, 81.5% of employmentCongo, Rep.: 4.11 births per woman, 75.9% of employmentColombia: 1.63 births per woman, 43% of employmentComoros: 3.82 births per woman, 56.8% of employmentCabo Verde: 1.51 births per woman, 34.3% of employmentCosta Rica: 1.32 births per woman, 23.4% of employmentCyprus: 1.38 births per woman, 8.38% of employmentCzechia: 1.36 births per woman, 13.5% of employmentGermany: 1.36 births per woman, 4.34% of employmentDjibouti: 2.62 births per woman, 30.3% of employmentDenmark: 1.47 births per woman, 5.4% of employmentDominican Republic: 2.22 births per woman, 38% of employmentAlgeria: 2.72 births per woman, 25.6% of employmentEcuador: 1.81 births per woman, 50.1% of employmentEgypt, Arab Rep.: 2.73 births per woman, 23.9% of employmentSpain: 1.1 births per woman, 10.1% of employmentEstonia: 1.18 births per woman, 7.09% of employmentEthiopia: 3.91 births per woman, 84.1% of employmentFinland: 1.25 births per woman, 9.46% of employmentFiji: 2.27 births per woman, 32.8% of employmentFrance: 1.61 births per woman, 8.5% of employmentGabon: 3.59 births per woman, 29.8% of employmentUnited Kingdom: 1.55 births per woman, 11.5% of employmentGeorgia: 1.8 births per woman, 42.4% of employmentGhana: 3.34 births per woman, 60% of employmentGuinea: 4.13 births per woman, 79.2% of employmentGambia, The: 3.91 births per woman, 63.5% of employmentGuinea-Bissau: 3.76 births per woman, 74.9% of employmentEquatorial Guinea: 4.12 births per woman, 23.1% of employmentGreece: 1.24 births per woman, 23.1% of employmentGuatemala: 2.29 births per woman, 36.2% of employmentGuyana: 2.4 births per woman, 25.3% of employmentHong Kong SAR, China: 0.841 births per woman, 5.76% of employmentHonduras: 2.48 births per woman, 33.9% of employmentCroatia: 1.46 births per woman, 6.35% of employmentHaiti: 2.63 births per woman, 76% of employmentHungary: 1.41 births per woman, 7.83% of employmentIndonesia: 2.12 births per woman, 50% of employmentIndia: 1.96 births per woman, 71.6% of employmentIreland: 1.47 births per woman, 9.64% of employmentIran, Islamic Rep.: 1.68 births per woman, 39.5% of employmentIraq: 3.22 births per woman, 27.1% of employmentIceland: 1.56 births per woman, 8.4% of employmentIsrael: 2.87 births per woman, 7.7% of employmentItaly: 1.18 births per woman, 14.3% of employmentJamaica: 1.35 births per woman, 31.6% of employmentJordan: 2.6 births per woman, 7.86% of employmentJapan: 1.15 births per woman, 7.49% of employmentKazakhstan: 2.98 births per woman, 24.8% of employmentKenya: 3.17 births per woman, 63.8% of employmentKyrgyz Republic: 2.6 births per woman, 29% of employmentCambodia: 2.55 births per woman, 52.3% of employmentKorea, Rep.: 0.748 births per woman, 17.7% of employmentKuwait: 1.56 births per woman, 2.4% of employmentLao PDR: 2.4 births per woman, 76.4% of employmentLebanon: 2.23 births per woman, 19.4% of employmentLiberia: 3.86 births per woman, 76.9% of employmentLibya: 2.3 births per woman, 21.6% of employmentSt. Lucia: 1.39 births per woman, 22% of employmentSri Lanka: 1.95 births per woman, 39.2% of employmentLesotho: 2.66 births per woman, 32.6% of employmentLithuania: 1.11 births per woman, 10.4% of employmentLuxembourg: 1.25 births per woman, 6.95% of employmentLatvia: 1.24 births per woman, 8.62% of employmentMacao SAR, China: 0.582 births per woman, 3.33% of employmentMorocco: 2.21 births per woman, 35.5% of employmentMoldova: 1.73 births per woman, 58.6% of employmentMadagascar: 3.91 births per woman, 84.4% of employmentMaldives: 1.56 births per woman, 16.9% of employmentMexico: 1.89 births per woman, 25.3% of employmentNorth Macedonia: 1.4 births per woman, 12.3% of employmentMali: 5.51 births per woman, 75.8% of employmentMalta: 1.01 births per woman, 10.1% of employmentMyanmar: 2.1 births per woman, 62.9% of employmentMontenegro: 1.8 births per woman, 14.3% of employmentMongolia: 2.5 births per woman, 38.4% of employmentMozambique: 4.69 births per woman, 83.7% of employmentMauritania: 4.63 births per woman, 53.3% of employmentMauritius: 1.44 births per woman, 14.9% of employmentMalawi: 3.59 births per woman, 59.9% of employmentMalaysia: 1.54 births per woman, 21.9% of employmentNamibia: 3.21 births per woman, 29.9% of employmentNiger: 5.93 births per woman, 83.7% of employmentNigeria: 4.38 births per woman, 66.5% of employmentNicaragua: 2.21 births per woman, 38.9% of employmentNetherlands: 1.43 births per woman, 13.4% of employmentNorway: 1.45 births per woman, 4.17% of employmentNepal: 1.96 births per woman, 77% of employmentNew Zealand: 1.57 births per woman, 12.6% of employmentOman: 2.51 births per woman, 3.81% of employmentPakistan: 3.55 births per woman, 55.5% of employmentPanama: 2.11 births per woman, 37.9% of employmentPeru: 1.97 births per woman, 47.5% of employmentPhilippines: 1.89 births per woman, 33.6% of employmentPapua New Guinea: 3.07 births per woman, 71.2% of employmentPoland: 1.14 births per woman, 15% of employmentPuerto Rico (US): 0.92 births per woman, 10.3% of employmentPortugal: 1.41 births per woman, 9.66% of employmentParaguay: 2.42 births per woman, 36.1% of employmentWest Bank and Gaza: 3.25 births per woman, 18.4% of employmentQatar: 1.72 births per woman, 0.456% of employmentRomania: 1.39 births per woman, 13% of employmentRussian Federation: 1.42 births per woman, 4.93% of employmentRwanda: 3.65 births per woman, 39.4% of employmentSaudi Arabia: 2.31 births per woman, 1.66% of employmentSudan: 4.26 births per woman, 39.7% of employmentSenegal: 3.77 births per woman, 63% of employmentSingapore: 0.97 births per woman, 9.3% of employmentSolomon Islands: 3.51 births per woman, 68.7% of employmentSierra Leone: 3.7 births per woman, 86% of employmentEl Salvador: 1.77 births per woman, 30.8% of employmentSomalia, Fed. Rep.: 6.01 births per woman, 46% of employmentSerbia: 1.64 births per woman, 23.9% of employmentSao Tome and Principe: 3.6 births per woman, 35% of employmentSuriname: 2.23 births per woman, 18.4% of employmentSlovak Republic: 1.46 births per woman, 11.8% of employmentSlovenia: 1.52 births per woman, 10.6% of employmentSweden: 1.43 births per woman, 6.87% of employmentEswatini: 2.72 births per woman, 28.4% of employmentSyrian Arab Republic: 2.7 births per woman, 38.9% of employmentChad: 6.03 births per woman, 90.2% of employmentTogo: 4.12 births per woman, 75% of employmentThailand: 1.2 births per woman, 48% of employmentTajikistan: 3.04 births per woman, 28% of employmentTurkmenistan: 2.66 births per woman, 28.3% of employmentTimor-Leste: 2.63 births per woman, 58.6% of employmentTonga: 3.1 births per woman, 33.7% of employmentTrinidad and Tobago: 1.54 births per woman, 21.2% of employmentTunisia: 1.82 births per woman, 17.9% of employmentTurkiye: 1.48 births per woman, 23.9% of employmentTanzania: 4.54 births per woman, 83.7% of employmentUganda: 4.17 births per woman, 74.4% of employmentUkraine: 0.988 births per woman, 19% of employmentUruguay: 1.4 births per woman, 24.4% of employmentUnited States: 1.63 births per woman, 3.81% of employmentUzbekistan: 3.49 births per woman, 33.3% of employmentSt. Vincent and the Grenadines: 1.76 births per woman, 22% of employmentVirgin Islands (U.S.): 1.97 births per woman, 5.47% of employmentViet Nam: 1.9 births per woman, 51.4% of employmentVanuatu: 3.57 births per woman, 58% of employmentSamoa: 3.8 births per woman, 41.6% of employmentSouth Africa: 2.21 births per woman, 11.7% of employmentZambia: 4.04 births per woman, 70.2% of employmentZimbabwe: 3.67 births per woman, 68.2% of employmentAREBTNCODGNQHKGINDISRMACNERNPLSOMTCD

best-fit line line after adjusting

Four ways to measure the link

MethodrpCountries
Standard (Pearson), not adjusted+0.7502.8e-33177
By rank (Spearman), not adjusted+0.7164.1e-29177
Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income+0.1530.043177
By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income+0.0050.945177

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 177 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: +0.597 (a minus sign means it grew).

How solid is it?

Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from +0.129 (without LSO) to +0.190 (without SOM). 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: SOM (+0.037).

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 & Pacific25-0.32
Europe & Central Asia48+0.03
Latin America & Caribbean29+0.41
Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan22+0.25
Sub-Saharan Africa45+0.38

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 third59+0.32
Middle third59-0.19
Richest third59+0.08

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
Christians106+0.38
Muslims49+0.25

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+0.32
Never a European colony21-0.36
Spain19-0.03
United Kingdom55+0.05

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 = +0.167 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 34years. So a link here can’t come from anything about a country that stays the same, such as its history, geography, institutions or culture.

Within countries over time, there is no link that is clearly more than chance (r = +0.096, comparing each country only with itself over the years, and each year only with the same year elsewhere). Whatever the cross-country picture shows, countries whose fertility rate moved did not tend to see their vulnerable employment move with it.

Across countries (adjusted)+0.153for comparison
Within countries+0.425each country vs itself
…and vs the same year elsewhere+0.096q = 0.240 · 187 countries
Year-on-year changes-0.001q = 0.976
Read with care.
  • Almost all of the second indicator's variation is between countries, 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.

6,349 country-years (one country in one year), 187 countries, 1991–2024, about 34 years each on average. Share of the variation that happens within countries over time: 11% for Fertility rate, 2% for Vulnerable employment. 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

0.20−0.2-100+10years Vulnerable employment trails Fertility rate →lag -10: r = 0.104 (n = 4,488)lag -9: r = 0.106 (n = 4,675)lag -8: r = 0.104 (n = 4,862)lag -7: r = 0.101 (n = 5,049)lag -6: r = 0.099 (n = 5,236)lag -5: r = 0.102 (n = 5,423)lag -4: r = 0.098 (n = 5,610)lag -3: r = 0.097 (n = 5,797)lag -2: r = 0.097 (n = 5,983)lag -1: r = 0.096 (n = 6,167)lag +0: r = 0.096 (n = 6,349)lag +1: r = 0.097 (n = 6,531)lag +2: r = 0.092 (n = 6,344)lag +3: r = 0.091 (n = 6,157)lag +4: r = 0.090 (n = 5,970)lag +5: r = 0.090 (n = 5,783)lag +6: r = 0.090 (n = 5,596)lag +7: r = 0.091 (n = 5,409)lag +8: r = 0.090 (n = 5,222)lag +9: r = 0.091 (n = 5,035)lag +10: r = 0.094 (n = 4,848)

Same year (lag 0): +0.096. 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 data


births per woman
% of employment		Years
Chad TCD6.0390.2%2024, 2025
Somalia, Fed. Rep. SOM6.0146%2024, 2025
Congo, Dem. Rep. COD5.9881.5%2024, 2025
Central African Republic CAF5.9579.4%2024, 2025
Niger NER5.9383.7%2024, 2025
Mali MLI5.5175.8%2024, 2025
Angola AGO5.0566.3%2024, 2025
Burundi BDI4.7983.7%2024, 2025
Afghanistan AFG4.7681.8%2024, 2025
Mozambique MOZ4.6983.7%2024, 2025
Mauritania MRT4.6353.3%2024, 2025
Tanzania TZA4.5483.7%2024, 2025
Benin BEN4.4878.5%2024, 2025
Nigeria NGA4.3866.5%2024, 2025
Sudan SDN4.2639.7%2024, 2022

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

Vulnerable employment

Vulnerable employment, total (% of total employment)

International Labour Organization · CC BY 4.0 · updated quarterly

Self-employed workers and unpaid family workers, who have no employer and usually no protection. The ILO estimates it with a model for every country and year, which is why it is complete where surveys are not.

How this was computed

Data used: most recent value in 2010-2025; values come from 2021–2025. 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 Vulnerable employment

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

More links with Fertility rate or Vulnerable employment