Governing party, economic left to right vs. Old-age spending
Holds up after adjusting for income
Across 41 countries, Governing party, economic left to right and Old-age spending rise and fall together at r = -0.26 (on a scale from −1 to +1, where 0 means no link). It holds up almost unchanged when only countries with similar income (GDP per person) are compared (r = -0.26, q = 0.037, allowing for the many pairs tested).
Comparing countries across the middle half of old-age spending, 5.11% to 9.74% of GDP, governing party, economic left to right is 0.42 scale lower at the top of that range than the bottom. Comparing only countries with similar national income, the gap is 0.421 scale.
Link before adjusting (r)-0.265p = 0.094 · 41 countries
After adjusting for national income-0.261p = 0.104 · likely range [-0.53, +0.06]
p, allowing for regions0.003standard error 0.041 · 5 regions
Check for luck (q)0.037across 17,292 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.
Governing party, economic left to right · scale (0 = far left, 6 = far right)link with income +0.08 · independent
Old-age spending · % of GDPlink with income +0.17 · independent
Neither of these is closely tied to national income, so adjusting for income is a real test here, not a formality.
“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 | -0.265 | 0.094 | 41 |
| By rank (Spearman), not adjusted | -0.280 | 0.076 | 41 |
| Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income | -0.261 | 0.104 | 41 |
| By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income | -0.280 | 0.081 | 41 |
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 41 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: +0.004 (a minus sign means it grew).
How solid is it?
Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from -0.320 (without GRC) to -0.212 (without FIN). 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: GRC (-0.060).
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 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Europe & Central Asia | 29 | -0.18 |
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 | 14 | -0.00 | |
| Middle third | 13 | -0.55 | |
| Richest third | 14 | -0.07 |
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 | 34 | -0.21 |
By official ideology
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 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| No strong official ideology | 36 | -0.26 |
By party system
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 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| No parties banned | 40 | -0.32 |
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 = -0.261 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 30years. 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 = +0.118, 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 governing party, economic left to right moved did not tend to see their old-age spending move with it.
Across countries (adjusted)-0.261for comparison
Within countries+0.045each country vs itself
…and vs the same year elsewhere+0.118q = 0.113 · 37 countries
Year-on-year changes—q = —
293 country-years (one country in one year), 37 countries, 1990–2019, about 8 years each on average. Share of the variation that happens within countries over time: 17% for Governing party, economic left to right, 82% for Old-age spending. 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
Same year (lag 0): +0.118. 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
scale (0 = far left, 6 = far right) | % of GDP | Years | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Colombia COL | 5.05 | 5.7% | 2018, 2023 |
| Korea, Rep. KOR | 4.8 | 3.62% | 2016, 2022 |
| United Kingdom GBR | 4.64 | 7.41% | 2019, 2022 |
| United States USA | 4.5 | 6.8% | 2018, 2023 |
| Turkiye TUR | 4.48 | 4.88% | 2018, 2021 |
| Japan JPN | 4.43 | 8.29% | 2017, 2022 |
| Norway NOR | 4.42 | 8.43% | 2017, 2021 |
| Chile CHL | 4.39 | 3.28% | 2017, 2023 |
| Hungary HUN | 4.33 | 7.33% | 2018, 2021 |
| Netherlands NLD | 4.28 | 7.19% | 2017, 2021 |
| Israel ISR | 4.25 | 4.92% | 2015, 2023 |
| Peru PER | 4.2 | 1.87% | 2016, 2023 |
| Latvia LVA | 4.1 | 7.82% | 2018, 2021 |
| Greece GRC | 4.04 | 13.6% | 2019, 2021 |
| Belgium BEL | 3.92 | 10.2% | 2019, 2021 |
Coppedge, M. et al., V-Dem Dataset v16, Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project; Lindberg, S. I. et al., Varieties of Party Identity and Organization (V-Party) Dataset. Read from the V-Dem Institute's vdemdata package.
OECD databases as named on each indicator: PISA, Social Expenditure Database (SOCX), Income Distribution Database, Development Assistance Committee statistics, Family Database, Government at a Glance, Corporate Tax Statistics, employment and environment statistics
Sources
Governing party, economic left to right
Economic left-right position of the main governing party
V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg · CC BY-SA 4.0 · updated annual (V-Dem); V-Party per election, to 2019
Where the main party in government stands on economic issues, as rated by V-Party's experts: 0 is far left (the state should run or redistribute most of the economy), 3 is the centre and 6 is far right (the market should be left alone). The main party is the one V-Party marks as the senior partner in government after each national election. It is recorded in election years only, and V-Party's data end in 2019, so the latest figure for many countries is a few years old. A one-party state has its ruling party here too: China's Communist Party is rated near the centre on economics, Cuba's near the far left. No "better" direction is set.
Old-age spending
Public spending on old-age benefits
OECD · via Our World in Data · CC BY 4.0 (OECD terms and conditions) · updated annual, except the snapshots noted per indicator
Public pensions and other benefits for older people. It mostly reflects how old a country is and how its pensions are set up. That is why its strongest link is with the share of people aged 65 and over.
How this was computed
Data used: most recent value in 2010-2025; values come from 2013–2023. 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 5 World Bank regions. The q-value corrects for testing all 17,292 pairs at once, using the Benjamini–Hochberg method. Underlying data last updated V-Dem v16; V-Party v2. How the country data works · explore Governing party, economic left to right and Old-age spending
This page shows that two measures go together. It does not show that Governing party, economic left to right changes Old-age spending, or the reverse. These figures also describe countries, not individual people. See the ecological fallacy.
More links with Governing party, economic left to right or Old-age spending
- Male labor participation vs Old-age spending before -0.77 → after adjusting -0.76
- Government expense vs Old-age spending before +0.68 → after adjusting +0.69
- Old-age spending vs Population 65+ before +0.69 → after adjusting +0.68
- Old-age spending vs Small government (Fraser) before -0.66 → after adjusting -0.68
- Median age vs Old-age spending before +0.66 → after adjusting +0.64
- Old-age spending vs Physicians before +0.57 → after adjusting +0.55
- Female labor participation vs Old-age spending before -0.36 → after adjusting -0.46
- Food insecurity vs Old-age spending before -0.44 → after adjusting -0.46