Do Life satisfaction and Women's age at first marriage (census-based) go together across countries?

Across 150 countries the link before adjusting for anything is r = +0.58, on a scale from -1 (opposite) to +1 (in step). A version that uses only each country's rank gives +0.60.

Does the link hold within countries over time, not just across countries?

There are not enough years of data within countries to check this over time.

Does Life satisfaction cause Women's age at first marriage (census-based)?

This analysis cannot answer that. It shows only that the two go together. A link between two country measures, adjusted or not, does not show that either one changes the other. Country figures also say nothing about individual people.

Life satisfaction vs. Women's age at first marriage (census-based)

Fades after adjusting for income

Across 150 countries, Life satisfaction and Women's age at first marriage (census-based) rise and fall together at r = +0.58 (on a scale from −1 to +1, where 0 means no link). Comparing only countries with similar income (GDP per person) shrinks it to -0.03, which could easily be chance (q = 0.90, 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 women's age at first marriage (census-based), 21.9 to 27.4 years, life satisfaction is better by 0.926 points at the top of that range than the bottom. Comparing only countries with similar national income, the gap reverses, to 0.0348 points the other way.

Link before adjusting (r)+0.577p = 1.0e-14 · 150 countries

After adjusting for national income-0.025p = 0.758 · likely range [-0.19, +0.14]

p, allowing for regions0.814standard error 0.104 · 7 regions

Check for luck (q)0.898across 14,952 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 satisfaction · score (0-10)link with income +0.81 · proxy

Women's age at first marriage (census-based) · yearslink with income +0.75 · 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	+0.577	1.0e-14	150
By rank (Spearman), not adjusted	+0.595	9.3e-16	150
Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income	-0.025	0.758	150
By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income	-0.066	0.423	150

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 150 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: +0.552 (a minus sign means it grew).

How solid is it?

Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from -0.062 (without GUY) to -0.007 (without BLZ). 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: GUY (-0.036).

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.

	n	r
East Asia & Pacific	15	-0.34
Europe & Central Asia	47	+0.25
Latin America & Caribbean	24	-0.04
Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan	17	+0.17
Sub-Saharan Africa	39	-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	50	-0.29
Middle third	50	-0.05
Richest third	50	+0.25

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	90	-0.02
Muslims	40	-0.18

By last european coloniser

	n	r
France	22	-0.50
Never a European colony	20	-0.28
Spain	18	-0.07
United Kingdom	40	+0.16

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 = -0.009 after dropping 1 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

	score (0-10)	years	Years
Finland FIN	7.76	30.7	2025, 2018
Iceland ISL	7.54	32.4	2025, 2018
Denmark DNK	7.54	31.9	2025, 2018
Costa Rica CRI	7.44	26.4	2025, 2018
Sweden SWE	7.25	31	2025, 2018
Norway NOR	7.24	32.1	2025, 2018
Netherlands NLD	7.22	32.4	2025, 2018
Israel ISR	7.19	26.2	2025, 2016
Luxembourg LUX	7.06	30.7	2025, 2018
Puerto Rico (US) PRI	7.04	29.2	2015, 2010
Switzerland CHE	7.02	30.9	2025, 2017
Mexico MEX	6.97	23.2	2025, 2019
Ireland IRL	6.93	32.4	2025, 2016
Belgium BEL	6.93	26.3	2025, 2011
Australia AUS	6.92	29.9	2025, 2016

Helliwell, J. et al., World Happiness Report; underlying data Gallup World Poll
World Bank Gender Statistics, from UN Population Division, World Marriage Data

Sources

Life satisfaction

Life satisfaction (Cantril ladder score)

Gallup / World Happiness Report · via Our World in Data · CC BY 4.0 · updated annual

The national average answer to the "Cantril ladder" question: "Please imagine a ladder, with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top...". It is a direct survey measure, not a combined index. The six factors the World Happiness Report uses to explain the ladder are not part of it. Values are usually three-year rolling averages of the Gallup World Poll. So each year's value overlaps with the next, and they are not separate readings.

Women's age at first marriage (census-based)

Age at first marriage, female

World Bank · CC BY 4.0 · updated annual

The average age at which women first marry. It is worked out from census and survey counts of how many women in each age group have never married, by the UN Population Division (World Marriage Data), so it covers far more countries than registered marriages do. Most countries have a figure only every few years, and the series ends in 2019. No "better" direction is set.

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 14,952 pairs at once, using the Benjamini–Hochberg method. Underlying data last updated DYB 2024. How the country data works · explore Life satisfaction and Women's age at first marriage (census-based)

This page shows that two measures go together. It does not show that Life satisfaction changes Women's age at first marriage (census-based), or the reverse. These figures also describe countries, not individual people. See the ecological fallacy.