placestats

Life expectancy vs. Out of school, primary

Fades after adjusting for income

Across 186 countries, Life expectancy and Out of school, primary 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) shrinks it to -0.25, which could easily be chance (q = 0.12, 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 life expectancy, 68.6 to 79.2 years, out of school, primary is better by 8.6% of primary-age children at the top of that range than the bottom. Comparing only countries with similar national income, the gap is 6.89% of primary-age children.

Link before adjusting (r)-0.522p = 2.1e-14 · 186 countries
After adjusting for national income-0.247p = 0.001 · likely range [-0.38, -0.11]
p, allowing for regions0.026standard error 0.084 · 7 regions
Check for luck (q)0.123across 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.

Life expectancy · yearslink with income +0.87 · proxy
Out of school, primary · % of primary-age childrenlink with income -0.45 · moderate

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

Every country as a dot

Life expectancy · years →Out of school, primary · % of primary-age children →54.685.80.00387%65.6%Aruba: 76.5 years, 1.76% of primary-age childrenAngola: 64.8 years, 36.8% of primary-age childrenAlbania: 79.8 years, 0.488% of primary-age childrenAndorra: 84.2 years, 2.41% of primary-age childrenUnited Arab Emirates: 83.1 years, 0.00387% of primary-age childrenArgentina: 77.5 years, 0.735% of primary-age childrenArmenia: 78.3 years, 1.08% of primary-age childrenAntigua and Barbuda: 77.8 years, 1.71% of primary-age childrenAustralia: 83.1 years, 0.124% of primary-age childrenAustria: 82 years, 1.43% of primary-age childrenAzerbaijan: 74.6 years, 0.0266% of primary-age childrenBurundi: 63.8 years, 26.5% of primary-age childrenBelgium: 82.3 years, 1.66% of primary-age childrenBenin: 61 years, 9.61% of primary-age childrenBurkina Faso: 61.3 years, 34.3% of primary-age childrenBangladesh: 74.9 years, 5.86% of primary-age childrenBulgaria: 75.8 years, 5.9% of primary-age childrenBahrain: 81.4 years, 4.75% of primary-age childrenBahamas, The: 74.7 years, 15.9% of primary-age childrenBosnia and Herzegovina: 78 years, 2.1% of primary-age childrenBelarus: 74.4 years, 4.49% of primary-age childrenBelize: 73.7 years, 10.7% of primary-age childrenBermuda: 82.5 years, 3.41% of primary-age childrenBolivia: 68.7 years, 9.25% of primary-age childrenBrazil: 76 years, 2.19% of primary-age childrenBarbados: 76.3 years, 17.6% of primary-age childrenBrunei Darussalam: 75.5 years, 3.61% of primary-age childrenBhutan: 73.3 years, 10.5% of primary-age childrenBotswana: 69.3 years, 0.535% of primary-age childrenCentral African Republic: 57.7 years, 37.9% of primary-age childrenCanada: 82.1 years, 4.99% of primary-age childrenSwitzerland: 84.4 years, 0.143% of primary-age childrenChile: 81.4 years, 2.12% of primary-age childrenCote d'Ivoire: 62.1 years, 12.6% of primary-age childrenCameroon: 64 years, 3.76% of primary-age childrenCongo, Rep.: 66 years, 17.1% of primary-age childrenColombia: 77.9 years, 7.32% of primary-age childrenComoros: 67 years, 20.6% of primary-age childrenCabo Verde: 76.2 years, 41.8% of primary-age childrenCosta Rica: 81 years, 4.49% of primary-age childrenCuracao: 77 years, 27.9% of primary-age childrenCayman Islands: 80.5 years, 5.17% of primary-age childrenCyprus: 81.8 years, 0.425% of primary-age childrenCzechia: 80 years, 0.809% of primary-age childrenGermany: 80.8 years, 0.274% of primary-age childrenDominica: 71.3 years, 3.95% of primary-age childrenDenmark: 82.3 years, 0.893% of primary-age childrenDominican Republic: 73.9 years, 4.93% of primary-age childrenAlgeria: 76.5 years, 1.57% of primary-age childrenEcuador: 77.6 years, 4.72% of primary-age childrenEgypt, Arab Rep.: 71.8 years, 3.51% of primary-age childrenSpain: 83.9 years, 1.24% of primary-age childrenEstonia: 79.3 years, 3.39% of primary-age childrenEthiopia: 67.6 years, 22.5% of primary-age childrenFinland: 82.3 years, 1.77% of primary-age childrenFiji: 67.5 years, 2.39% of primary-age childrenFrance: 83 years, 0.204% of primary-age childrenMicronesia, Fed. Sts.: 67.4 years, 23.1% of primary-age childrenGabon: 68.5 years, 28.8% of primary-age childrenUnited Kingdom: 81.4 years, 0.0698% of primary-age childrenGeorgia: 74.7 years, 6.17% of primary-age childrenGhana: 65.7 years, 4.77% of primary-age childrenGuinea: 60.9 years, 14.7% of primary-age childrenGambia, The: 66.1 years, 16.9% of primary-age childrenGuinea-Bissau: 64.3 years, 30.5% of primary-age childrenEquatorial Guinea: 63.9 years, 65.6% of primary-age childrenGreece: 81.8 years, 0.11% of primary-age childrenGrenada: 75.4 years, 4.94% of primary-age childrenGuatemala: 72.7 years, 8.43% of primary-age childrenGuyana: 70.3 years, 18% of primary-age childrenHong Kong SAR, China: 85.4 years, 1.4% of primary-age childrenHonduras: 73 years, 26.6% of primary-age childrenCroatia: 78.9 years, 1.81% of primary-age childrenHungary: 76.7 years, 2.81% of primary-age childrenIndonesia: 71.3 years, 0.877% of primary-age childrenIndia: 72.2 years, 0.119% of primary-age childrenIreland: 83 years, 1.81% of primary-age childrenIran, Islamic Rep.: 77.9 years, 0.103% of primary-age childrenIceland: 82.8 years, 1.82% of primary-age childrenIsrael: 83.2 years, 2.66% of primary-age childrenItaly: 84 years, 2.06% of primary-age childrenJamaica: 71.6 years, 4.34% of primary-age childrenJordan: 78 years, 1.89% of primary-age childrenJapan: 84 years, 0.0684% of primary-age childrenKazakhstan: 74.5 years, 7.91% of primary-age childrenKenya: 63.8 years, 32.9% of primary-age childrenKyrgyz Republic: 72.4 years, 2.96% of primary-age childrenCambodia: 70.8 years, 3.69% of primary-age childrenKiribati: 66.6 years, 8.71% of primary-age childrenKorea, Rep.: 83.6 years, 0.0557% of primary-age childrenKuwait: 84.6 years, 7.47% of primary-age childrenLao PDR: 69.2 years, 10.4% of primary-age childrenLebanon: 77.9 years, 22.5% of primary-age childrenLiberia: 62.3 years, 38.3% of primary-age childrenSt. Lucia: 72.8 years, 7.01% of primary-age childrenSri Lanka: 77.7 years, 9.14% of primary-age childrenLesotho: 57.8 years, 32.2% of primary-age childrenLithuania: 77.2 years, 0.13% of primary-age childrenLuxembourg: 83.2 years, 0.256% of primary-age childrenLatvia: 76.4 years, 2.74% of primary-age childrenMacao SAR, China: 83.3 years, 10.8% of primary-age childrenMorocco: 75.5 years, 0.471% of primary-age childrenMoldova: 71.3 years, 0.463% of primary-age childrenMadagascar: 63.8 years, 3.4% of primary-age childrenMaldives: 81.3 years, 0.946% of primary-age childrenMexico: 75.3 years, 0.363% of primary-age childrenMarshall Islands: 67.1 years, 1.48% of primary-age childrenNorth Macedonia: 76.6 years, 3.79% of primary-age childrenMali: 60.7 years, 34% of primary-age childrenMalta: 83 years, 2.64% of primary-age childrenMyanmar: 67.1 years, 1.41% of primary-age childrenMontenegro: 77.9 years, 0.218% of primary-age childrenMongolia: 72.4 years, 8.56% of primary-age childrenMozambique: 63.8 years, 1% of primary-age childrenMauritania: 68.7 years, 11.3% of primary-age childrenMauritius: 73.8 years, 0.785% of primary-age childrenMalawi: 67.6 years, 2.09% of primary-age childrenMalaysia: 76.8 years, 12% of primary-age childrenNamibia: 67.5 years, 0.865% of primary-age childrenNiger: 61.4 years, 40.4% of primary-age childrenNigeria: 54.6 years, 24.3% of primary-age childrenNicaragua: 75.1 years, 6.66% of primary-age childrenNetherlands: 82 years, 0.519% of primary-age childrenNorway: 83.2 years, 1.38% of primary-age childrenNepal: 70.6 years, 0.762% of primary-age childrenNaoero: 62.3 years, 6.6% of primary-age childrenNew Zealand: 82 years, 2.62% of primary-age childrenOman: 80.2 years, 5.76% of primary-age childrenPakistan: 67.8 years, 17.9% of primary-age childrenPanama: 79.8 years, 7.7% of primary-age childrenPeru: 77.9 years, 0.156% of primary-age childrenPhilippines: 69.9 years, 11.6% of primary-age childrenPalau: 69.4 years, 1.33% of primary-age childrenPapua New Guinea: 66.3 years, 4% of primary-age childrenPoland: 78.4 years, 0.0917% of primary-age childrenPuerto Rico (US): 81.9 years, 13.3% of primary-age childrenPortugal: 82.4 years, 0.508% of primary-age childrenParaguay: 74 years, 13.3% of primary-age childrenWest Bank and Gaza: 69.2 years, 9.56% of primary-age childrenQatar: 82.5 years, 4.62% of primary-age childrenRomania: 76.5 years, 15.6% of primary-age childrenRussian Federation: 73.4 years, 4.94% of primary-age childrenRwanda: 68 years, 0.97% of primary-age childrenSaudi Arabia: 79 years, 0.527% of primary-age childrenSudan: 66.5 years, 43.8% of primary-age childrenSenegal: 68.9 years, 24.5% of primary-age childrenSingapore: 83.3 years, 0.212% of primary-age childrenSolomon Islands: 70.7 years, 30.1% of primary-age childrenSierra Leone: 62 years, 0.888% of primary-age childrenEl Salvador: 72.3 years, 8.66% of primary-age childrenSan Marino: 85.8 years, 6.13% of primary-age childrenSerbia: 76 years, 3.33% of primary-age childrenSao Tome and Principe: 69.9 years, 2.88% of primary-age childrenSuriname: 73.8 years, 16.2% of primary-age childrenSlovak Republic: 78.4 years, 1.06% of primary-age childrenSlovenia: 82.3 years, 1.45% of primary-age childrenSweden: 84.1 years, 0.57% of primary-age childrenEswatini: 64.3 years, 3.83% of primary-age childrenSint Maarten (Dutch part): 76.5 years, 6.78% of primary-age childrenSeychelles: 76.3 years, 6.8% of primary-age childrenSyrian Arab Republic: 72.6 years, 21.8% of primary-age childrenTurks and Caicos Islands: 78.2 years, 0.133% of primary-age childrenChad: 55.2 years, 24.8% of primary-age childrenTogo: 62.9 years, 0.639% of primary-age childrenThailand: 76.6 years, 0.817% of primary-age childrenTajikistan: 71.9 years, 4.15% of primary-age childrenTurkmenistan: 70.2 years, 4.31% of primary-age childrenTimor-Leste: 67.9 years, 6.88% of primary-age childrenTonga: 73.1 years, 2.28% of primary-age childrenTrinidad and Tobago: 73.6 years, 7.16% of primary-age childrenTunisia: 76.7 years, 1.09% of primary-age childrenTurkiye: 77.4 years, 0.603% of primary-age childrenTuvalu: 67.3 years, 0.537% of primary-age childrenTanzania: 67.2 years, 16.4% of primary-age childrenUganda: 68.5 years, 4.12% of primary-age childrenUkraine: 74.7 years, 12.9% of primary-age childrenUruguay: 78.3 years, 0.0355% of primary-age childrenUnited States: 78.9 years, 3.98% of primary-age childrenUzbekistan: 72.5 years, 0.655% of primary-age childrenSt. Vincent and the Grenadines: 71.4 years, 0.59% of primary-age childrenViet Nam: 74.7 years, 1.73% of primary-age childrenVanuatu: 71.7 years, 2.53% of primary-age childrenSamoa: 71.8 years, 1.81% of primary-age childrenSouth Africa: 66.3 years, 6.06% of primary-age childrenZambia: 66.5 years, 3.51% of primary-age childrenZimbabwe: 63.1 years, 10.5% of primary-age childrenCAFCHECPVCUWGNQHKGJPNMOZNERSLETGO

best-fit line line after adjusting

Four ways to measure the link

MethodrpCountries
Standard (Pearson), not adjusted-0.5222.1e-14186
By rank (Spearman), not adjusted-0.5032.7e-13186
Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income-0.2470.001186
By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income-0.2540.000186

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 186 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: +0.276 (a minus sign means it grew).

How solid is it?

Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from -0.280 (without CPV) to -0.189 (without GNQ). 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: GNQ (+0.058).

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 & Pacific30+0.11
Europe & Central Asia50-0.30
Latin America & Caribbean35-0.20
Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan18+0.04
Sub-Saharan Africa44-0.21

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 third62-0.18
Middle third62-0.34
Richest third62-0.47

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
Christians109-0.29
Muslims44-0.24

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
France23-0.11
Never a European colony19-0.36
Spain20-0.70
United Kingdom59-0.19

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 = -0.159 after dropping 20 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.

The link shows up within countries over time (r = -0.357) but mostly disappears in year-to-year changes (r = -0.039). That points to slow trends particular to each country, not the two measures moving together from year to year.

Across countries (adjusted)-0.247for comparison
Within countries-0.524each country vs itself
…and vs the same year elsewhere-0.357q = 0.001 · 187 countries
Year-on-year changes-0.039q = 0.208
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.
  • The association is much weaker in year-on-year changes than in levels, which points to shared country-specific trends.

3,719 country-years (one country in one year), 187 countries, 1990–2024, about 20 years each on average. Share of the variation that happens within countries over time: 10% for Life expectancy, 26% for Out of school, primary. 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

0.40−0.4-100+10years Out of school, primary trails Life expectancy →lag -10: r = -0.299 (n = 2,265)lag -9: r = -0.337 (n = 2,417)lag -8: r = -0.349 (n = 2,551)lag -7: r = -0.352 (n = 2,710)lag -6: r = -0.371 (n = 2,867)lag -5: r = -0.376 (n = 3,016)lag -4: r = -0.378 (n = 3,168)lag -3: r = -0.376 (n = 3,316)lag -2: r = -0.368 (n = 3,463)lag -1: r = -0.359 (n = 3,604)lag +0: r = -0.357 (n = 3,719)lag +1: r = -0.334 (n = 3,687)lag +2: r = -0.321 (n = 3,648)lag +3: r = -0.304 (n = 3,601)lag +4: r = -0.317 (n = 3,558)lag +5: r = -0.304 (n = 3,508)lag +6: r = -0.288 (n = 3,469)lag +7: r = -0.287 (n = 3,426)lag +8: r = -0.252 (n = 3,387)lag +9: r = -0.237 (n = 3,341)lag +10: r = -0.216 (n = 3,254)

Same year (lag 0): -0.357. 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


years
% of primary-age children		Years
San Marino SMR85.86.13%2024
Hong Kong SAR, China HKG85.41.4%2024
Kuwait KWT84.67.47%2024, 2016
Switzerland CHE84.40.143%2024
Andorra AND84.22.41%2024
Sweden SWE84.10.57%2024
Japan JPN840.0684%2024, 2023
Italy ITA842.06%2024, 2023
Spain ESP83.91.24%2024
Korea, Rep. KOR83.60.0557%2024
Singapore SGP83.30.212%2024, 2023
Macao SAR, China MAC83.310.8%2024
Israel ISR83.22.66%2024
Luxembourg LUX83.20.256%2024
Norway NOR83.21.38%2024

World Bank, World Development Indicators
World Bank, World Development Indicators

Sources

Life expectancy

Life expectancy at birth, total (years)

World Bank · CC BY 4.0 · updated quarterly

Out of school, primary

Children out of school (% of primary school age)

UNESCO Institute for Statistics · CC BY 4.0 · updated quarterly

Children of primary-school age not enrolled at any level. Treated as measuring the same thing as gross primary enrolment, which is on the site. They are two ways of asking whether children are in school, so their agreement is not a finding.

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 12,497 pairs at once, using the Benjamini–Hochberg method. Underlying data last updated DYB 2024. How the country data works · explore Life expectancy and Out of school, primary

This page shows that two measures go together. It does not show that Life expectancy changes Out of school, primary, or the reverse. These figures also describe countries, not individual people. See the ecological fallacy.

More links with Life expectancy or Out of school, primary