placestats

Gender score vs. Political civil liberties

Fades after adjusting for income

Across 167 countries, Gender score and Political civil liberties rise and fall together at r = +0.52 (on a scale from −1 to +1, where 0 means no link). Comparing only countries with similar income (GDP per person) leaves r = +0.46, which could easily be chance (q = 0.081, allowing for the many pairs tested, and allowing for countries in the same region being alike). Caution: direction is not consistent across regions.

Comparing countries across the middle half of political civil liberties, 0.459 to 0.891 points, gender score is better by 0.551 typical gaps at the top of that range than the bottom. Comparing only countries with similar national income, the gap is 0.487 typical gaps.

Link before adjusting (r)+0.516p = 9.8e-13 · 167 countries
After adjusting for national income+0.465p = 2.9e-10 · likely range [+0.34, +0.58]
p, allowing for regions0.011standard error 0.127 · 7 regions
Check for luck (q)0.081across 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.

Gender score · typical gaps (standard deviations)link with income +0.37 · moderate
Political civil liberties · index (0-1)link with income +0.40 · moderate

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

Every country as a dot

Gender score · typical gaps (standard deviations) →Political civil liberties · index (0-1) →-1.212.190.0170.975Afghanistan: -0.756 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.021 index (0-1)Angola: 0.461 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.578 index (0-1)Albania: 1.27 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.761 index (0-1)United Arab Emirates: 0.89 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.122 index (0-1)Argentina: 1.08 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.774 index (0-1)Armenia: 1.26 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.818 index (0-1)Australia: 1.57 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.906 index (0-1)Austria: 1.17 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.926 index (0-1)Azerbaijan: -0.374 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.121 index (0-1)Burundi: 0.991 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.157 index (0-1)Belgium: 1.45 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.963 index (0-1)Benin: 0.759 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.741 index (0-1)Burkina Faso: -0.093 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.346 index (0-1)Bangladesh: -0.782 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.636 index (0-1)Bulgaria: 0.273 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.825 index (0-1)Bahrain: 0.0565 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.15 index (0-1)Bosnia and Herzegovina: 0.116 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.735 index (0-1)Belarus: 0.153 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.036 index (0-1)Bolivia: 0.641 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.735 index (0-1)Brazil: 0.685 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.932 index (0-1)Barbados: 1.16 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.922 index (0-1)Bhutan: -0.491 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.658 index (0-1)Botswana: 0.25 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.843 index (0-1)Central African Republic: -0.215 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.525 index (0-1)Canada: 1.38 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.922 index (0-1)Switzerland: 1.22 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.969 index (0-1)Chile: 1.72 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.943 index (0-1)China: -0.0629 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.036 index (0-1)Cote d'Ivoire: 0.00107 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.701 index (0-1)Cameroon: 0.739 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.417 index (0-1)Congo, Dem. Rep.: -0.00209 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.555 index (0-1)Congo, Rep.: -0.252 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.296 index (0-1)Colombia: 0.908 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.842 index (0-1)Comoros: -0.257 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.514 index (0-1)Cabo Verde: 1.2 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.893 index (0-1)Costa Rica: 1.7 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.931 index (0-1)Cyprus: 0.593 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.879 index (0-1)Czechia: 0.196 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.934 index (0-1)Germany: 1.34 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.892 index (0-1)Djibouti: 0.259 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.41 index (0-1)Denmark: 1.1 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.975 index (0-1)Dominican Republic: 1.32 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.922 index (0-1)Algeria: -0.399 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.339 index (0-1)Ecuador: 1.34 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.694 index (0-1)Egypt, Arab Rep.: -0.204 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.145 index (0-1)Spain: 1.69 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.925 index (0-1)Estonia: 1.7 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.966 index (0-1)Ethiopia: 1.4 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.336 index (0-1)Finland: 2.04 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.936 index (0-1)Fiji: -0.199 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.759 index (0-1)France: 1.36 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.953 index (0-1)Gabon: 0.419 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.747 index (0-1)United Kingdom: 1.23 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.858 index (0-1)Georgia: 0.641 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.605 index (0-1)Ghana: 0.134 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.922 index (0-1)Guinea: 0.289 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.453 index (0-1)Gambia, The: 0.216 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.837 index (0-1)Guinea-Bissau: -0.221 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.549 index (0-1)Equatorial Guinea: -0.151 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.117 index (0-1)Greece: 0.861 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.845 index (0-1)Guatemala: 0.823 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.856 index (0-1)Guyana: 1.29 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.855 index (0-1)Honduras: 1.04 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.876 index (0-1)Croatia: 0.51 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.793 index (0-1)Haiti: -0.419 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.786 index (0-1)Hungary: -0.00646 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.607 index (0-1)Indonesia: 0.0942 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.596 index (0-1)India: -0.409 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.465 index (0-1)Ireland: 0.727 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.967 index (0-1)Iran, Islamic Rep.: -0.961 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.158 index (0-1)Iraq: 0.119 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.543 index (0-1)Iceland: 2.19 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.93 index (0-1)Israel: 0.453 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.769 index (0-1)Italy: 0.707 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.873 index (0-1)Jamaica: 1.09 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.936 index (0-1)Jordan: -0.0146 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.549 index (0-1)Japan: -0.021 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.92 index (0-1)Kazakhstan: 0.296 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.362 index (0-1)Kenya: 0.693 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.86 index (0-1)Kyrgyz Republic: 0.129 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.427 index (0-1)Cambodia: -0.47 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.208 index (0-1)Korea, Rep.: 0.412 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.911 index (0-1)Kuwait: -1.02 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.364 index (0-1)Lao PDR: -0.093 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.053 index (0-1)Lebanon: -0.687 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.729 index (0-1)Liberia: 0.525 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.845 index (0-1)Libya: -0.0625 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.515 index (0-1)Sri Lanka: -0.262 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.895 index (0-1)Lesotho: 0.261 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.857 index (0-1)Lithuania: 0.944 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.893 index (0-1)Luxembourg: 0.927 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.956 index (0-1)Latvia: 1.32 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.943 index (0-1)Morocco: 0.514 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.549 index (0-1)Moldova: 1.45 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.761 index (0-1)Madagascar: 0.668 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.743 index (0-1)Maldives: -0.746 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.724 index (0-1)Mexico: 1.33 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.642 index (0-1)North Macedonia: 1.08 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.753 index (0-1)Mali: 0.147 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.439 index (0-1)Malta: 0.55 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.891 index (0-1)Myanmar: 0.308 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.058 index (0-1)Montenegro: 0.895 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.891 index (0-1)Mongolia: 0.547 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.758 index (0-1)Mozambique: 0.926 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.504 index (0-1)Mauritania: 0.103 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.526 index (0-1)Mauritius: 0.0843 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.922 index (0-1)Malawi: 0.728 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.755 index (0-1)Malaysia: -0.0868 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.691 index (0-1)Namibia: 1.41 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.896 index (0-1)Niger: 0.397 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.747 index (0-1)Nigeria: -0.213 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.863 index (0-1)Nicaragua: 1.98 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.017 index (0-1)Netherlands: 1.19 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.892 index (0-1)Norway: 1.53 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.955 index (0-1)Nepal: 0.416 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.863 index (0-1)New Zealand: 1.62 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.929 index (0-1)Oman: -0.95 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.167 index (0-1)Pakistan: -0.689 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.502 index (0-1)Panama: 0.873 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.885 index (0-1)Peru: 0.933 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.759 index (0-1)Philippines: 0.494 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.641 index (0-1)Papua New Guinea: -1.01 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.889 index (0-1)Poland: 1.13 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.93 index (0-1)Portugal: 1.05 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.914 index (0-1)Paraguay: 0.39 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.799 index (0-1)Qatar: -0.892 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.079 index (0-1)Romania: 0.285 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.838 index (0-1)Russian Federation: 0.137 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.1 index (0-1)Rwanda: 1.02 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.174 index (0-1)Saudi Arabia: -0.552 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.083 index (0-1)Sudan: -1.21 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.271 index (0-1)Senegal: 0.477 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.837 index (0-1)Singapore: 1.04 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.528 index (0-1)Solomon Islands: -0.473 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.892 index (0-1)Sierra Leone: 0.991 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.868 index (0-1)El Salvador: 0.618 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.429 index (0-1)Somalia, Fed. Rep.: -0.615 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.532 index (0-1)Serbia: 1.01 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.549 index (0-1)Sao Tome and Principe: 0.8 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.843 index (0-1)Suriname: 1.04 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.916 index (0-1)Slovak Republic: 0.374 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.807 index (0-1)Slovenia: 1.26 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.797 index (0-1)Sweden: 1.79 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.96 index (0-1)Eswatini: -0.0447 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.062 index (0-1)Seychelles: 1.17 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.893 index (0-1)Syrian Arab Republic: -0.767 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.283 index (0-1)Chad: 0.144 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.302 index (0-1)Togo: 0.48 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.483 index (0-1)Thailand: 0.332 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.548 index (0-1)Tajikistan: -0.106 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.07 index (0-1)Turkmenistan: -0.394 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.054 index (0-1)Timor-Leste: 0.73 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.866 index (0-1)Trinidad and Tobago: 1.21 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.92 index (0-1)Tunisia: 0.319 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.561 index (0-1)Turkiye: -0.502 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.263 index (0-1)Tanzania: 0.828 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.614 index (0-1)Uganda: 0.849 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.368 index (0-1)Ukraine: 0.643 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.511 index (0-1)Uruguay: 0.63 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.947 index (0-1)United States: 1.06 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.865 index (0-1)Uzbekistan: 0.228 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.249 index (0-1)Viet Nam: 0.0903 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.094 index (0-1)Vanuatu: 0.107 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.905 index (0-1)Kosovo: 0.375 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.828 index (0-1)South Africa: 1.45 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.884 index (0-1)Zambia: 0.211 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.797 index (0-1)Zimbabwe: 0.576 typical gaps (standard deviations), 0.349 index (0-1)AFGAREBDIFINIRNISLMDVNICPNGQATSLBSWE

best-fit line line after adjusting

Four ways to measure the link

MethodrpCountries
Standard (Pearson), not adjusted+0.5169.8e-13167
By rank (Spearman), not adjusted+0.5812.0e-16167
Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income+0.4652.9e-10167
By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income+0.5044.3e-12167

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 167 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: +0.051 (a minus sign means it grew).

How solid is it?

Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from +0.441 (without QAT) to +0.511 (without NIC). 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: NIC (+0.047).

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 & Pacific20+0.21
Europe & Central Asia49+0.62
Latin America & Caribbean23-0.45
Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan21+0.46
Sub-Saharan Africa46+0.24

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 third56+0.04
Middle third55+0.58
Richest third56+0.70

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
Christians99+0.14
Muslims48+0.41

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+0.31
Never a European colony21+0.65
Spain19+0.06
United Kingdom49+0.43

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 = +0.465 after dropping 0 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


typical gaps (standard deviations)

index (0-1)
Years
Iceland ISL2.190.932024, 2025
Finland FIN2.040.9362024, 2025
Nicaragua NIC1.980.0172024, 2025
Sweden SWE1.790.962024, 2025
Chile CHL1.720.9432024, 2025
Costa Rica CRI1.70.9312025
Estonia EST1.70.9662024, 2025
Spain ESP1.690.9252024, 2025
New Zealand NZL1.620.9292024, 2025
Australia AUS1.570.9062024, 2025
Norway NOR1.530.9552024, 2025
South Africa ZAF1.450.8842024, 2025
Moldova MDA1.450.7612024, 2025
Belgium BEL1.450.9632024, 2025
Namibia NAM1.410.8962024, 2025

vdem; wb_gender; wdi
Coppedge, M. et al., V-Dem Dataset, Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project

Sources

Gender score

Gender score

PlaceStats · via PlaceStats · Derived work; each member keeps its own licence · updated recomputed with the panel

The average of 5 measures from 3 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: Women's political empowerment, Women ministers, Women in parliament, Women in management, Married by 18.

Political civil liberties

Political civil liberties index

V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg · via Our World in Data · CC BY 4.0 · updated annual

Combines freedom of expression and freedom of association. So it shares both parts with the electoral democracy index.

How this was computed

Data used: most recent value in 2010-2025; values come from 2018–2025. 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 Gender score and Political civil liberties

This page shows that two measures go together. It does not show that Gender score changes Political civil liberties, or the reverse. These figures also describe countries, not individual people. See the ecological fallacy.

More links with Gender score or Political civil liberties