Across 153 countries, Food insecurity and Labour score rise and fall together at r = -0.68 (on a scale from −1 to +1, where 0 means no link). Comparing only countries with similar income (GDP per person) shrinks it to -0.24 (q = 0.023, 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 food insecurity, 9.9% to 45.3% of population, labour score is worse by 0.653 typical gaps at the top of that range than the bottom. Comparing only countries with similar national income, the gap is 0.299 typical gaps.
Link before adjusting (r)-0.682p = 2.8e-22 · 153 countries
After adjusting for national income-0.243p = 0.003 · likely range [-0.39, -0.09]
p, allowing for regions0.001standard error 0.042 · 7 regions
Check for luck (q)0.023across 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.
Food insecurity · % of populationlink with income -0.83 · proxy
Labour score · typical gaps (standard deviations)link with income +0.79 · 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
best-fit line line after adjusting
Four ways to measure the link
Method
r
p
Countries
Standard (Pearson), not adjusted
-0.682
2.8e-22
153
By rank (Spearman), not adjusted
-0.754
2.5e-29
153
Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income
-0.243
0.003
153
By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income
-0.287
0.000
153
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 153 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: +0.439 (a minus sign means it grew).
How solid is it?
Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from -0.275 (without ZAF) to -0.210 (without SWZ). 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 (+0.033).
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
23
-0.02
Europe & Central Asia
46
-0.40
Latin America & Caribbean
26
-0.02
Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan
14
-0.20
Sub-Saharan Africa
39
-0.20
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
51
-0.32
Middle third
51
-0.20
Richest third
51
-0.41
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
98
-0.29
Muslims
35
-0.29
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
21
-0.29
Never a European colony
16
-0.41
Spain
14
-0.01
United Kingdom
50
-0.20
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 = -0.209 after dropping 2 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
% of population
typical gaps (standard deviations)
Years
Sierra Leone SLE
89.8%
-0.503
2023, 2025
Central African Republic CAF
88.1%
-0.633
2022, 2025
Haiti HTI
83.2%
-1.28
2023, 2025
Malawi MWI
81.7%
-0.169
2023, 2025
Congo, Dem. Rep. COD
81.5%
-0.523
2023, 2025
Liberia LBR
80.8%
-0.308
2023, 2025
Afghanistan AFG
80.8%
-1.26
2023, 2025
Comoros COM
79.7%
-0.00862
2023, 2025
Somalia, Fed. Rep. SOM
79.5%
-1.05
2021, 2025
Angola AGO
78.5%
-0.939
2021, 2025
Nigeria NGA
74.8%
-0.128
2023, 2025
Kenya KEN
73.9%
-0.274
2023, 2025
Madagascar MDG
72.6%
-0.463
2023, 2025
Burundi BDI
70.8%
-0.275
2023, 2025
Zimbabwe ZWE
68.8%
-0.673
2023, 2025
World Bank, World Development Indicators un_sdg; wdi
Prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity in the population (%)
Food and Agriculture Organization, Food Insecurity Experience Scale · CC BY 4.0 · updated quarterly
Asked of people, in a survey about running out of food, and reported as a three-year average from 2015. It is the one measure of hunger here that comes from what people say they went through, rather than from a model.
PlaceStats · via PlaceStats · Derived work; each member keeps its own licence · updated recomputed with the panel
The average of 4 measures from 2 publishers. 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: Informal employment, Vulnerable employment, Youth not in work or study, Unemployment.
How this was computed
Data used: most recent value in 2010-2025; values come from 2017–2025. 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 Food insecurity and Labour score
This page shows that two measures go together. It does not show that Food insecurity changes Labour score, or the reverse. These figures also describe countries, not individual people. See the ecological fallacy.