placestats

Fertility rate vs. Youth not in work or study

Fades after adjusting for income

Across 176 countries, Fertility rate and Youth not in work or study rise and fall together at r = +0.50 (on a scale from −1 to +1, where 0 means no link). Comparing only countries with similar income (GDP per person) shrinks it to +0.05, which could easily be chance (q = 0.78, 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 3.18 births per woman, youth not in work or study is worse by 8.07% of 15 to 24 year olds at the top of that range than the bottom. Comparing only countries with similar national income, the gap is 1.1% of 15 to 24 year olds.

Link before adjusting (r)+0.500p = 1.6e-12 · 176 countries
After adjusting for national income+0.047p = 0.533 · likely range [-0.10, +0.19]
p, allowing for regions0.637standard error 0.096 · 7 regions
Check for luck (q)0.778across 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.

Fertility rate · births per womanlink with income -0.81 · proxy
Youth not in work or study · % of 15 to 24 year oldslink with income -0.66 · high

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 →Youth not in work or study · % of 15 to 24 year olds →0.5826.033.14%65.7%Aruba: 1.61 births per woman, 16.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsAfghanistan: 4.76 births per woman, 43.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsAngola: 5.05 births per woman, 24.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsAlbania: 1.34 births per woman, 21% of 15 to 24 year oldsUnited Arab Emirates: 1.21 births per woman, 7.46% of 15 to 24 year oldsArgentina: 1.5 births per woman, 15.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsArmenia: 1.7 births per woman, 20.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsAntigua and Barbuda: 1.58 births per woman, 15.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsAustralia: 1.48 births per woman, 8.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsAustria: 1.31 births per woman, 13.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsAzerbaijan: 1.43 births per woman, 9.64% of 15 to 24 year oldsBurundi: 4.79 births per woman, 11.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsBelgium: 1.44 births per woman, 7.35% of 15 to 24 year oldsBenin: 4.48 births per woman, 14.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsBurkina Faso: 4.11 births per woman, 24.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsBangladesh: 2.14 births per woman, 15.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsBulgaria: 1.72 births per woman, 11.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsBosnia and Herzegovina: 1.49 births per woman, 14.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsBelarus: 1.22 births per woman, 65.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsBelize: 2.02 births per woman, 24.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsBermuda: 1.41 births per woman, 6.79% of 15 to 24 year oldsBolivia: 2.52 births per woman, 7.96% of 15 to 24 year oldsBrazil: 1.61 births per woman, 18.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsBarbados: 1.71 births per woman, 29% of 15 to 24 year oldsBrunei Darussalam: 1.73 births per woman, 18.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsBhutan: 1.45 births per woman, 15.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsBotswana: 2.7 births per woman, 38% of 15 to 24 year oldsCanada: 1.25 births per woman, 13.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsSwitzerland: 1.29 births per woman, 6.99% of 15 to 24 year oldsChile: 1.14 births per woman, 13.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsCote d'Ivoire: 4.23 births per woman, 18.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsCameroon: 4.26 births per woman, 23.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsCongo, Dem. Rep.: 5.98 births per woman, 31.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsColombia: 1.63 births per woman, 22% of 15 to 24 year oldsComoros: 3.82 births per woman, 21.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsCabo Verde: 1.51 births per woman, 28% of 15 to 24 year oldsCosta Rica: 1.32 births per woman, 19.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsCuracao: 1.4 births per woman, 17.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsCyprus: 1.38 births per woman, 9.37% of 15 to 24 year oldsCzechia: 1.36 births per woman, 4.89% of 15 to 24 year oldsGermany: 1.36 births per woman, 8.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsDjibouti: 2.62 births per woman, 44% of 15 to 24 year oldsDenmark: 1.47 births per woman, 7.91% of 15 to 24 year oldsDominican Republic: 2.22 births per woman, 24.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsAlgeria: 2.72 births per woman, 20.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsEcuador: 1.81 births per woman, 17.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsEgypt, Arab Rep.: 2.73 births per woman, 23.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsSpain: 1.1 births per woman, 9.42% of 15 to 24 year oldsEstonia: 1.18 births per woman, 10.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsEthiopia: 3.91 births per woman, 17.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsFinland: 1.25 births per woman, 9.13% of 15 to 24 year oldsFiji: 2.27 births per woman, 20.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsFrance: 1.61 births per woman, 11% of 15 to 24 year oldsMicronesia, Fed. Sts.: 2.74 births per woman, 28.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsGabon: 3.59 births per woman, 20.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsUnited Kingdom: 1.55 births per woman, 14.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsGeorgia: 1.8 births per woman, 15.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsGhana: 3.34 births per woman, 18.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsGuinea: 4.13 births per woman, 34.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsGambia, The: 3.91 births per woman, 36.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsGuinea-Bissau: 3.76 births per woman, 13.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsEquatorial Guinea: 4.12 births per woman, 17.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsGreece: 1.24 births per woman, 10.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsGrenada: 1.47 births per woman, 20.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsGuatemala: 2.29 births per woman, 22.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsGuyana: 2.4 births per woman, 31.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsHong Kong SAR, China: 0.841 births per woman, 5.95% of 15 to 24 year oldsHonduras: 2.48 births per woman, 29% of 15 to 24 year oldsCroatia: 1.46 births per woman, 8.97% of 15 to 24 year oldsHaiti: 2.63 births per woman, 21.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsHungary: 1.41 births per woman, 9.55% of 15 to 24 year oldsIndonesia: 2.12 births per woman, 21.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsIndia: 1.96 births per woman, 25.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsIreland: 1.47 births per woman, 6.37% of 15 to 24 year oldsIran, Islamic Rep.: 1.68 births per woman, 24.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsIraq: 3.22 births per woman, 36.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsIceland: 1.56 births per woman, 4% of 15 to 24 year oldsIsrael: 2.87 births per woman, 15.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsItaly: 1.18 births per woman, 9.91% of 15 to 24 year oldsJamaica: 1.35 births per woman, 19.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsJordan: 2.6 births per woman, 29.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsJapan: 1.15 births per woman, 3.14% of 15 to 24 year oldsKazakhstan: 2.98 births per woman, 9.49% of 15 to 24 year oldsKenya: 3.17 births per woman, 18.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsKyrgyz Republic: 2.6 births per woman, 19.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsCambodia: 2.55 births per woman, 9.73% of 15 to 24 year oldsKiribati: 3.12 births per woman, 35.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsLao PDR: 2.4 births per woman, 22.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsLebanon: 2.23 births per woman, 23.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsLiberia: 3.86 births per woman, 39.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsSt. Lucia: 1.39 births per woman, 25.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsSri Lanka: 1.95 births per woman, 17.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsLesotho: 2.66 births per woman, 38% of 15 to 24 year oldsLithuania: 1.11 births per woman, 12.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsLuxembourg: 1.25 births per woman, 7.73% of 15 to 24 year oldsLatvia: 1.24 births per woman, 9.12% of 15 to 24 year oldsMacao SAR, China: 0.582 births per woman, 4.96% of 15 to 24 year oldsMorocco: 2.21 births per woman, 35.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsMoldova: 1.73 births per woman, 9.05% of 15 to 24 year oldsMadagascar: 3.91 births per woman, 24.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsMaldives: 1.56 births per woman, 26.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsMexico: 1.89 births per woman, 16.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsMarshall Islands: 2.86 births per woman, 40% of 15 to 24 year oldsNorth Macedonia: 1.4 births per woman, 19.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsMali: 5.51 births per woman, 30.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsMalta: 1.01 births per woman, 8.36% of 15 to 24 year oldsMyanmar: 2.1 births per woman, 15% of 15 to 24 year oldsMontenegro: 1.8 births per woman, 14.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsMongolia: 2.5 births per woman, 9.03% of 15 to 24 year oldsMozambique: 4.69 births per woman, 19.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsMauritania: 4.63 births per woman, 44.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsMauritius: 1.44 births per woman, 13.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsMalawi: 3.59 births per woman, 39.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsMalaysia: 1.54 births per woman, 10.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsNamibia: 3.21 births per woman, 31.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsNiger: 5.93 births per woman, 15.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsNigeria: 4.38 births per woman, 11.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsNicaragua: 2.21 births per woman, 24.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsNetherlands: 1.43 births per woman, 3.91% of 15 to 24 year oldsNorway: 1.45 births per woman, 6.15% of 15 to 24 year oldsNepal: 1.96 births per woman, 34.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsNaoero: 3.29 births per woman, 50.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsNew Zealand: 1.57 births per woman, 12.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsOman: 2.51 births per woman, 25.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsPakistan: 3.55 births per woman, 28.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsPanama: 2.11 births per woman, 15.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsPeru: 1.97 births per woman, 22.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsPhilippines: 1.89 births per woman, 16.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsPalau: 1.88 births per woman, 11.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsPapua New Guinea: 3.07 births per woman, 27.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsPoland: 1.14 births per woman, 10.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsPuerto Rico (US): 0.92 births per woman, 19.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsPortugal: 1.41 births per woman, 6.91% of 15 to 24 year oldsParaguay: 2.42 births per woman, 18.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsWest Bank and Gaza: 3.25 births per woman, 25.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsRomania: 1.39 births per woman, 16.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsRussian Federation: 1.42 births per woman, 6.68% of 15 to 24 year oldsRwanda: 3.65 births per woman, 15.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsSaudi Arabia: 2.31 births per woman, 16.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsSudan: 4.26 births per woman, 46.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsSenegal: 3.77 births per woman, 34.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsSingapore: 0.97 births per woman, 6.46% of 15 to 24 year oldsSolomon Islands: 3.51 births per woman, 7.04% of 15 to 24 year oldsSierra Leone: 3.7 births per woman, 25.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsEl Salvador: 1.77 births per woman, 19.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsSomalia, Fed. Rep.: 6.01 births per woman, 51% of 15 to 24 year oldsSerbia: 1.64 births per woman, 12.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsSao Tome and Principe: 3.6 births per woman, 45.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsSuriname: 2.23 births per woman, 18.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsSlovak Republic: 1.46 births per woman, 8.02% of 15 to 24 year oldsSlovenia: 1.52 births per woman, 6.83% of 15 to 24 year oldsSweden: 1.43 births per woman, 4.95% of 15 to 24 year oldsEswatini: 2.72 births per woman, 36.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsSeychelles: 1.85 births per woman, 17.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsChad: 6.03 births per woman, 42.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsTogo: 4.12 births per woman, 13% of 15 to 24 year oldsThailand: 1.2 births per woman, 12.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsTajikistan: 3.04 births per woman, 41.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsTimor-Leste: 2.63 births per woman, 29.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsTonga: 3.1 births per woman, 25.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsTrinidad and Tobago: 1.54 births per woman, 15.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsTunisia: 1.82 births per woman, 22.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsTurkiye: 1.48 births per woman, 23.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsTuvalu: 3.17 births per woman, 34.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsTanzania: 4.54 births per woman, 15.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsUganda: 4.17 births per woman, 13.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsUkraine: 0.988 births per woman, 16.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsUruguay: 1.4 births per woman, 12.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsUnited States: 1.63 births per woman, 11.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsViet Nam: 1.9 births per woman, 10.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsVanuatu: 3.57 births per woman, 29.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsSamoa: 3.8 births per woman, 30.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsKosovo: 1.54 births per woman, 30% of 15 to 24 year oldsSouth Africa: 2.21 births per woman, 34.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsZambia: 4.04 births per woman, 26.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsZimbabwe: 3.67 births per woman, 28.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsAFGBDIBLRDJIHKGJPNMACNERNGANRUSOMTCD

best-fit line line after adjusting

Four ways to measure the link

MethodrpCountries
Standard (Pearson), not adjusted+0.5001.6e-12176
By rank (Spearman), not adjusted+0.5851.6e-17176
Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income+0.0470.533176
By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income+0.0970.203176

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 176 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: +0.453 (a minus sign means it grew).

How solid is it?

Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from +0.020 (without GUY) to +0.083 (without BLR). 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: BLR (+0.035).

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 & Pacific29+0.54
Europe & Central Asia47-0.10
Latin America & Caribbean30+0.24
Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan17+0.20
Sub-Saharan Africa44-0.03

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 third59+0.05
Middle third58+0.26
Richest third59+0.16

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
Christians107-0.09
Muslims43+0.03

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
France22+0.25
Never a European colony17+0.10
Spain20-0.09
United Kingdom55+0.22

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 = +0.043 after dropping 6 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.

Within countries over time, there is no link that is clearly more than chance (r = -0.092, 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 youth not in work or study move with it.

Across countries (adjusted)+0.047for comparison
Within countries+0.068each country vs itself
…and vs the same year elsewhere-0.092q = 0.151 · 124 countries
Year-on-year changes-0.019q = 0.773
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.

2,256 country-years (one country in one year), 124 countries, 1990–2024, about 18 years each on average. Share of the variation that happens within countries over time: 7% for Fertility rate, 21% for Youth not in work or study. 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 Youth not in work or study trails Fertility rate →lag -10: r = -0.018 (n = 1,195)lag -9: r = -0.002 (n = 1,292)lag -8: r = 0.001 (n = 1,401)lag -7: r = -0.009 (n = 1,502)lag -6: r = -0.033 (n = 1,589)lag -5: r = -0.073 (n = 1,699)lag -4: r = -0.097 (n = 1,817)lag -3: r = -0.098 (n = 1,922)lag -2: r = -0.108 (n = 2,047)lag -1: r = -0.100 (n = 2,157)lag +0: r = -0.092 (n = 2,256)lag +1: r = -0.084 (n = 2,320)lag +2: r = -0.071 (n = 2,303)lag +3: r = -0.062 (n = 2,287)lag +4: r = -0.054 (n = 2,273)lag +5: r = -0.048 (n = 2,255)lag +6: r = -0.043 (n = 2,236)lag +7: r = -0.031 (n = 2,210)lag +8: r = -0.017 (n = 2,181)lag +9: r = -0.012 (n = 2,155)lag +10: r = -0.001 (n = 2,119)

Same year (lag 0): -0.092. 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 15 to 24 year olds		Years
Chad TCD6.0342.3%2024, 2022
Somalia, Fed. Rep. SOM6.0151%2024, 2022
Congo, Dem. Rep. COD5.9831.4%2024, 2020
Niger NER5.9315.7%2024, 2022
Mali MLI5.5130.1%2024
Angola AGO5.0524.9%2024, 2025
Burundi BDI4.7911.2%2024, 2020
Afghanistan AFG4.7643.8%2024, 2021
Mozambique MOZ4.6919.2%2024, 2022
Mauritania MRT4.6344.1%2024, 2019
Tanzania TZA4.5415.2%2024, 2025
Benin BEN4.4814.2%2024, 2022
Nigeria NGA4.3811.9%2024
Sudan SDN4.2646.5%2024, 2022
Cameroon CMR4.2623.2%2024, 2021

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

Youth not in work or study

Share of youth not in education, employment or training, total (% of youth population)

International Labour Organization · CC BY 4.0 · updated quarterly

From labour force surveys, so yearly for about a hundred countries and occasional elsewhere.

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 Fertility rate and Youth not in work or study

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

More links with Fertility rate or Youth not in work or study