placestats

GDP growth vs. Refugees originating

Holds up after adjusting for income

Across 192 countries, GDP growth and Refugees originating rise and fall together at r = -0.09 (on a scale from −1 to +1, where 0 means no link). There is almost no link to explain.

Comparing countries across the middle half of refugees originating, 2.21 to 127 per 100,000 people, gdp growth is 0.0134% per year lower at the top of that range than the bottom. Comparing only countries with similar national income, the gap is 0.021% per year.

Link before adjusting (r)-0.088p = 0.227 · 192 countries
After adjusting for national income-0.135p = 0.063 · likely range [-0.27, +0.01]
p, allowing for regions0.186standard error 0.090 · 7 regions
Check for luck (q)0.012across 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.

GDP growth · % per yearlink with income -0.33 · moderate
Refugees originating · per 100,000 peoplelink with income -0.49 · moderate

“Link with income” is how closely each measure tracks GDP per person across countries, from −1 to +1.

Every country as a dot

GDP growth · % per year →Refugees originating · per 100,000 people →-7.08%19.3%024,124Aruba: 6.81% per year, 0 per 100,000 peopleAfghanistan: 1.87% per year, 13,521 per 100,000 peopleAngola: 3.13% per year, 33.1 per 100,000 peopleAlbania: 3.79% per year, 784 per 100,000 peopleAndorra: 3.87% per year, 6.1 per 100,000 peopleUnited Arab Emirates: 3.99% per year, 2.37 per 100,000 peopleArgentina: 4.37% per year, 1.02 per 100,000 peopleArmenia: 7.2% per year, 536 per 100,000 peopleAntigua and Barbuda: 5% per year, 97 per 100,000 peopleAustralia: 1.35% per year, 0.116 per 100,000 peopleAustria: 0.616% per year, 0.362 per 100,000 peopleAzerbaijan: 1.45% per year, 1,482 per 100,000 peopleBurundi: 4.24% per year, 2,295 per 100,000 peopleBelgium: 0.983% per year, 0.792 per 100,000 peopleBenin: 8.07% per year, 7.36 per 100,000 peopleBurkina Faso: 5.29% per year, 637 per 100,000 peopleBangladesh: 3.49% per year, 16.4 per 100,000 peopleBulgaria: 3.1% per year, 7.37 per 100,000 peopleBahrain: 3.48% per year, 18 per 100,000 peopleBahamas, The: 3.38% per year, 361 per 100,000 peopleBosnia and Herzegovina: 2.13% per year, 848 per 100,000 peopleBelarus: 1.3% per year, 195 per 100,000 peopleBelize: 2.75% per year, 24.9 per 100,000 peopleBermuda: 1.89% per year, 7.73 per 100,000 peopleBolivia: -1.58% per year, 4.93 per 100,000 peopleBrazil: 2.29% per year, 2.39 per 100,000 peopleBarbados: 2.7% per year, 147 per 100,000 peopleBrunei Darussalam: 0.67% per year, 0 per 100,000 peopleBhutan: 8.01% per year, 939 per 100,000 peopleBotswana: -0.734% per year, 9.88 per 100,000 peopleCentral African Republic: 4.5% per year, 13,009 per 100,000 peopleCanada: 1.74% per year, 0.778 per 100,000 peopleSwitzerland: 1.3% per year, 0.056 per 100,000 peopleChile: 2.46% per year, 24.3 per 100,000 peopleChina: 4.96% per year, 10.8 per 100,000 peopleCote d'Ivoire: 6.5% per year, 92.2 per 100,000 peopleCameroon: 3.2% per year, 377 per 100,000 peopleCongo, Dem. Rep.: 5.76% per year, 970 per 100,000 peopleCongo, Rep.: 3.08% per year, 223 per 100,000 peopleColombia: 2.64% per year, 147 per 100,000 peopleComoros: 3.75% per year, 268 per 100,000 peopleCabo Verde: 6.3% per year, 2.67 per 100,000 peopleCosta Rica: 4.56% per year, 6.16 per 100,000 peopleCuracao: 5.03% per year, 4.31 per 100,000 peopleCayman Islands: 3.76% per year, 6.98 per 100,000 peopleCyprus: 3.77% per year, 0.736 per 100,000 peopleCzechia: 2.58% per year, 9.85 per 100,000 peopleGermany: 0.24% per year, 0.412 per 100,000 peopleDjibouti: 6.5% per year, 176 per 100,000 peopleDominica: 3.05% per year, 133 per 100,000 peopleDenmark: 2.93% per year, 0.268 per 100,000 peopleDominican Republic: 2.12% per year, 9.45 per 100,000 peopleAlgeria: 3.82% per year, 18.8 per 100,000 peopleEcuador: 3.73% per year, 27.7 per 100,000 peopleEgypt, Arab Rep.: 4.39% per year, 20.4 per 100,000 peopleSpain: 2.82% per year, 0.363 per 100,000 peopleEstonia: 0.584% per year, 9.26 per 100,000 peopleEthiopia: 9.77% per year, 125 per 100,000 peopleFinland: 0.173% per year, 0.089 per 100,000 peopleFiji: 3.2% per year, 26.7 per 100,000 peopleFrance: 0.841% per year, 0.209 per 100,000 peopleMicronesia, Fed. Sts.: 1.06% per year, 0 per 100,000 peopleGabon: 2.47% per year, 37.3 per 100,000 peopleUnited Kingdom: 1.39% per year, 0.603 per 100,000 peopleGeorgia: 7.46% per year, 435 per 100,000 peopleGhana: 5.95% per year, 43.8 per 100,000 peopleGuinea: 7.45% per year, 285 per 100,000 peopleGambia, The: 5.89% per year, 295 per 100,000 peopleGuinea-Bissau: 5.82% per year, 86.3 per 100,000 peopleEquatorial Guinea: -5.85% per year, 22.5 per 100,000 peopleGreece: 2.07% per year, 0.965 per 100,000 peopleGrenada: 4.41% per year, 85.3 per 100,000 peopleGuatemala: 4.28% per year, 197 per 100,000 peopleGuyana: 19.3% per year, 37.7 per 100,000 peopleHong Kong SAR, China: 3.49% per year, 3.24 per 100,000 peopleHonduras: 3.75% per year, 933 per 100,000 peopleCroatia: 3.4% per year, 462 per 100,000 peopleHaiti: -2.71% per year, 1,259 per 100,000 peopleHungary: 0.51% per year, 20.5 per 100,000 peopleIndonesia: 5.11% per year, 3.24 per 100,000 peopleIndia: 7.57% per year, 2.71 per 100,000 peopleIreland: 12.3% per year, 1.29 per 100,000 peopleIran, Islamic Rep.: -2.83% per year, 173 per 100,000 peopleIraq: -2.16% per year, 664 per 100,000 peopleIceland: 1.28% per year, 0 per 100,000 peopleIsrael: 2.93% per year, 13.9 per 100,000 peopleItaly: 0.54% per year, 0.443 per 100,000 peopleJamaica: 0.0816% per year, 89.9 per 100,000 peopleJordan: 2.83% per year, 43.2 per 100,000 peopleJapan: 1.19% per year, 0.0444 per 100,000 peopleKazakhstan: 6.5% per year, 20 per 100,000 peopleKenya: 4.63% per year, 20.7 per 100,000 peopleKyrgyz Republic: 11.1% per year, 47.3 per 100,000 peopleCambodia: 5.35% per year, 65 per 100,000 peopleKiribati: 4.22% per year, 3.72 per 100,000 peopleSt. Kitts and Nevis: 2.69% per year, 57.6 per 100,000 peopleKorea, Rep.: 1.01% per year, 0.275 per 100,000 peopleKuwait: 2.73% per year, 61.2 per 100,000 peopleLao PDR: 4.54% per year, 84.4 per 100,000 peopleLebanon: -7.08% per year, 164 per 100,000 peopleLiberia: 5.02% per year, 90.6 per 100,000 peopleLibya: 13.4% per year, 234 per 100,000 peopleSt. Lucia: -0.574% per year, 89 per 100,000 peopleSri Lanka: 4.95% per year, 636 per 100,000 peopleLesotho: 1.98% per year, 1.07 per 100,000 peopleLithuania: 2.92% per year, 3.88 per 100,000 peopleLuxembourg: 0.638% per year, 0.743 per 100,000 peopleLatvia: 2.14% per year, 9.56 per 100,000 peopleMacao SAR, China: 4.67% per year, 2.08 per 100,000 peopleMorocco: 4.6% per year, 27.9 per 100,000 peopleMoldova: 2.42% per year, 205 per 100,000 peopleMadagascar: 3% per year, 1.89 per 100,000 peopleMaldives: 6.31% per year, 14.4 per 100,000 peopleMexico: 0.562% per year, 30 per 100,000 peopleMarshall Islands: 2.28% per year, 0 per 100,000 peopleNorth Macedonia: 3.49% per year, 110 per 100,000 peopleMali: 5.6% per year, 1,446 per 100,000 peopleMalta: 3.96% per year, 1.85 per 100,000 peopleMyanmar: -2.01% per year, 2,427 per 100,000 peopleMontenegro: 2.74% per year, 120 per 100,000 peopleMongolia: 6.84% per year, 72 per 100,000 peopleMozambique: -0.523% per year, 0.329 per 100,000 peopleMauritania: 4.03% per year, 737 per 100,000 peopleMauritius: 3.15% per year, 20.7 per 100,000 peopleMalawi: 1.89% per year, 2.63 per 100,000 peopleMalaysia: 5.17% per year, 3.4 per 100,000 peopleNamibia: 1.73% per year, 21.3 per 100,000 peopleNiger: 7.01% per year, 163 per 100,000 peopleNigeria: 4.01% per year, 201 per 100,000 peopleNicaragua: 4.92% per year, 434 per 100,000 peopleNetherlands: 1.78% per year, 0.746 per 100,000 peopleNorway: 1.09% per year, 0.395 per 100,000 peopleNepal: 4.43% per year, 26.4 per 100,000 peopleNaoero: 2.14% per year, 41.8 per 100,000 peopleNew Zealand: 0.463% per year, 0.997 per 100,000 peopleOman: 2.4% per year, 2.23 per 100,000 peoplePakistan: 3.7% per year, 34.3 per 100,000 peoplePanama: 4.35% per year, 7.37 per 100,000 peoplePeru: 3.43% per year, 18.9 per 100,000 peoplePhilippines: 4.4% per year, 0.678 per 100,000 peoplePalau: 6.29% per year, 28.2 per 100,000 peoplePapua New Guinea: 5.64% per year, 4.77 per 100,000 peoplePoland: 3.57% per year, 3.96 per 100,000 peoplePuerto Rico (US): 0.318% per year, 0 per 100,000 peoplePortugal: 1.86% per year, 1.06 per 100,000 peopleParaguay: 6.64% per year, 2.45 per 100,000 peopleWest Bank and Gaza: 4.34% per year, 795 per 100,000 peopleQatar: 2.9% per year, 2.13 per 100,000 peopleRomania: 0.678% per year, 15.4 per 100,000 peopleRussian Federation: 1% per year, 66.9 per 100,000 peopleRwanda: 9.38% per year, 1,747 per 100,000 peopleSaudi Arabia: 4.5% per year, 6.87 per 100,000 peopleSudan: 3.06% per year, 4,151 per 100,000 peopleSenegal: 6.68% per year, 70 per 100,000 peopleSingapore: 5.03% per year, 0.772 per 100,000 peopleSolomon Islands: 3.62% per year, 5.37 per 100,000 peopleSierra Leone: 4.61% per year, 93.1 per 100,000 peopleEl Salvador: 3.91% per year, 1,132 per 100,000 peopleSomalia, Fed. Rep.: 2.99% per year, 4,703 per 100,000 peopleSao Tome and Principe: 1.03% per year, 2.12 per 100,000 peopleSuriname: 1.79% per year, 7.88 per 100,000 peopleSlovak Republic: 0.807% per year, 12.1 per 100,000 peopleSlovenia: 1.06% per year, 0.802 per 100,000 peopleSweden: 1.54% per year, 0.924 per 100,000 peopleEswatini: 4.19% per year, 12.1 per 100,000 peopleSeychelles: 5.8% per year, 7.67 per 100,000 peopleSyrian Arab Republic: -0.202% per year, 24,124 per 100,000 peopleTurks and Caicos Islands: 5.64% per year, 30.1 per 100,000 peopleChad: 5.59% per year, 72 per 100,000 peopleTogo: 6.31% per year, 151 per 100,000 peopleThailand: 2.44% per year, 0.419 per 100,000 peopleTajikistan: 8.4% per year, 38.2 per 100,000 peopleTurkmenistan: 6.3% per year, 34.4 per 100,000 peopleTimor-Leste: 6.98% per year, 0.357 per 100,000 peopleTonga: 2.8% per year, 40.3 per 100,000 peopleTrinidad and Tobago: -0.788% per year, 31.4 per 100,000 peopleTunisia: 2.49% per year, 29.3 per 100,000 peopleTurkiye: 3.6% per year, 160 per 100,000 peopleTuvalu: 1.64% per year, 0 per 100,000 peopleTanzania: 5.85% per year, 1.84 per 100,000 peopleUganda: 6.33% per year, 20.7 per 100,000 peopleUkraine: 1.82% per year, 13,524 per 100,000 peopleUruguay: 1.78% per year, 3.87 per 100,000 peopleUnited States: 2.16% per year, 1.16 per 100,000 peopleUzbekistan: 7.7% per year, 14.2 per 100,000 peopleSt. Vincent and the Grenadines: 3.39% per year, 185 per 100,000 peopleViet Nam: 8.02% per year, 19.8 per 100,000 peopleVanuatu: 3.05% per year, 1.53 per 100,000 peopleSamoa: 4.2% per year, 3.67 per 100,000 peopleSouth Africa: 1.11% per year, 1.83 per 100,000 peopleZambia: 3.76% per year, 1.58 per 100,000 peopleZimbabwe: 8.11% per year, 48 per 100,000 peopleAFGCAFGNQGUYIRLIRNLBNLBYSYRUKR

best-fit line line after adjusting

Four ways to measure the link

MethodrpCountries
Standard (Pearson), not adjusted-0.0880.227192
By rank (Spearman), not adjusted+0.2610.000192
Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income-0.1350.063192
By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income+0.1320.068192

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 192 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: -0.047 (a minus sign means it grew).

How solid is it?

Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from -0.153 (without GUY) to -0.087 (without SYR). 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: SYR (+0.048).

Fragile: this link may not hold up.
  • correlation moves sharply once outliers are trimmed
  • sign flips 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 & Pacific31-0.47
Europe & Central Asia48-0.19
Latin America & Caribbean36+0.21
Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan22-0.16
Sub-Saharan Africa46-0.09

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 third64-0.26
Middle third64-0.05
Richest third64+0.14

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
Christians110-0.01
Muslims49-0.31

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
France25-0.29
Never a European colony21-0.41
Spain20+0.23
United Kingdom63-0.10

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 = +0.076 after dropping 35 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 = -0.042, 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 gdp growth moved did not tend to see their refugees originating move with it.

Across countries (adjusted)-0.135for comparison
Within countries-0.045each country vs itself
…and vs the same year elsewhere-0.042q = 0.514 · 197 countries
Year-on-year changes-0.041q = 0.316

5,940 country-years (one country in one year), 197 countries, 1990–2024, about 30 years each on average. Share of the variation that happens within countries over time: 54% for GDP growth, 92% for Refugees originating. 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 Refugees originating trails GDP growth →lag -10: r = 0.014 (n = 4,231)lag -9: r = 0.031 (n = 4,416)lag -8: r = 0.043 (n = 4,603)lag -7: r = 0.089 (n = 4,794)lag -6: r = 0.093 (n = 4,983)lag -5: r = 0.081 (n = 5,167)lag -4: r = 0.079 (n = 5,356)lag -3: r = 0.079 (n = 5,546)lag -2: r = 0.070 (n = 5,737)lag -1: r = 0.068 (n = 5,929)lag +0: r = -0.042 (n = 5,940)lag +1: r = -0.106 (n = 5,848)lag +2: r = -0.097 (n = 5,748)lag +3: r = -0.092 (n = 5,636)lag +4: r = -0.099 (n = 5,514)lag +5: r = -0.103 (n = 5,355)lag +6: r = -0.094 (n = 5,196)lag +7: r = -0.078 (n = 5,029)lag +8: r = -0.075 (n = 4,871)lag +9: r = -0.077 (n = 4,707)lag +10: r = -0.079 (n = 4,540)

Same year (lag 0): -0.042. 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 (-0.11 at lag +1) is higher than the same-year one by 0.06. 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


% per year
per 100,000 people		Years
Guyana GUY19.3%37.72025, 2024
Libya LBY13.4%2342025, 2024
Ireland IRL12.3%1.292025, 2024
Kyrgyz Republic KGZ11.1%47.32025, 2024
Ethiopia ETH9.77%1252025, 2024
Rwanda RWA9.38%1,7472025, 2024
Tajikistan TJK8.4%38.22025, 2024
Zimbabwe ZWE8.11%482025, 2024
Benin BEN8.07%7.362025, 2024
Viet Nam VNM8.02%19.82025, 2024
Bhutan BTN8.01%9392025, 2024
Uzbekistan UZB7.7%14.22025, 2024
India IND7.57%2.712025, 2024
Georgia GEO7.46%4352025, 2024
Guinea GIN7.45%2852025, 2024

World Bank, World Development Indicators
UNHCR Refugee Data Finder; rate per population from Our World in Data

Sources

GDP growth

GDP growth (annual %)

World Bank · CC BY 4.0 · updated quarterly

Refugees originating

Refugees originating from the country, per 100,000 people

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees · via Our World in Data · CC BY 4.0 · updated annual

People recognised as refugees abroad, compared with the population of the country they left. It is zero for most of the world and in the thousands for a dozen countries at war. So it is put on a log scale (which squeezes very large values together) wherever it is used for adjusting, and its links lean on those few countries. The "leave one out" check shows by how much. It has a "better" direction and sits under governance. But it is an outcome of governance, not a measure of it, so it is kept out of the governance score.

How this was computed

Data used: most recent value in 2010-2025; values come from 2022–2025. 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 GDP growth and Refugees originating

This page shows that two measures go together. It does not show that GDP growth changes Refugees originating, or the reverse. These figures also describe countries, not individual people. See the ecological fallacy.

More links with GDP growth or Refugees originating