placestats

Mean years of schooling vs. Tobacco use

Holds up after adjusting for income

Across 164 countries, Mean years of schooling and Tobacco use rise and fall together at r = +0.33 (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 = +0.31, q = 0.025, allowing for the many pairs tested). Caution: direction is not consistent across regions.

Comparing countries across the middle half of mean years of schooling, 7.05 to 11.9 years, tobacco use is worse by 5.13% of adults at the top of that range than the bottom. Comparing only countries with similar national income, the gap is 8.29% of adults.

Link before adjusting (r)+0.333p = 1.3e-5 · 164 countries
After adjusting for national income+0.314p = 4.4e-5 · likely range [+0.17, +0.45]
p, allowing for regions0.001standard error 0.056 · 7 regions
Check for luck (q)0.025across 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.

Mean years of schooling · yearslink with income +0.82 · proxy
Tobacco use · % of adultslink with income +0.24 · independent

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

Every country as a dot

Mean years of schooling · years →Tobacco use · % of adults →1.4114.33.1%48.8%Afghanistan: 2.51 years, 22.1% of adultsAlbania: 10.2 years, 21.4% of adultsAndorra: 11.6 years, 35.5% of adultsUnited Arab Emirates: 13 years, 9% of adultsArgentina: 11.2 years, 23.5% of adultsArmenia: 11.3 years, 26.2% of adultsAustralia: 12.9 years, 11.6% of adultsAustria: 12.4 years, 23.8% of adultsAzerbaijan: 11.1 years, 18.7% of adultsBurundi: 3.47 years, 10.1% of adultsBelgium: 12.7 years, 23.5% of adultsBenin: 3.19 years, 7.4% of adultsBurkina Faso: 2.27 years, 11.6% of adultsBangladesh: 6.79 years, 32% of adultsBulgaria: 11.5 years, 38.7% of adultsBahrain: 11.1 years, 15.4% of adultsBahamas, The: 12.8 years, 17.3% of adultsBosnia and Herzegovina: 11 years, 37.1% of adultsBelarus: 12.3 years, 29.2% of adultsBelize: 8.76 years, 8.5% of adultsBolivia: 10 years, 12.3% of adultsBrazil: 8.43 years, 11.9% of adultsBrunei Darussalam: 9.28 years, 14.5% of adultsBhutan: 5.84 years, 19.6% of adultsBotswana: 10.5 years, 18% of adultsCanada: 13.9 years, 11.2% of adultsSwitzerland: 13.9 years, 23.1% of adultsChile: 11.3 years, 26.7% of adultsChina: 8.04 years, 22.8% of adultsCote d'Ivoire: 4.87 years, 7.3% of adultsCameroon: 6.57 years, 5.7% of adultsCongo, Dem. Rep.: 7.38 years, 12.3% of adultsCongo, Rep.: 8.32 years, 16.2% of adultsColombia: 9.03 years, 8% of adultsComoros: 6.01 years, 8.9% of adultsCabo Verde: 6.09 years, 10.4% of adultsCosta Rica: 8.84 years, 7.9% of adultsCyprus: 12.6 years, 32.5% of adultsCzechia: 13 years, 28.4% of adultsGermany: 14.3 years, 22% of adultsDenmark: 13 years, 15.7% of adultsAlgeria: 7.42 years, 22.4% of adultsEcuador: 8.97 years, 10.1% of adultsEgypt, Arab Rep.: 10.1 years, 25% of adultsSpain: 10.8 years, 27.6% of adultsEstonia: 13.6 years, 26.1% of adultsEthiopia: 2.4 years, 5.2% of adultsFinland: 13 years, 21.4% of adultsFiji: 10.4 years, 25.8% of adultsFrance: 11.8 years, 33.6% of adultsGabon: 9.69 years, 13.3% of adultsUnited Kingdom: 13.5 years, 12.8% of adultsGeorgia: 12.7 years, 33% of adultsGhana: 7.11 years, 3.3% of adultsGambia, The: 4.67 years, 11.1% of adultsGuinea-Bissau: 3.67 years, 8.2% of adultsGreece: 11.6 years, 30.2% of adultsGuatemala: 5.85 years, 11.2% of adultsGuyana: 8.7 years, 11.7% of adultsHonduras: 7.51 years, 12.1% of adultsCroatia: 12.1 years, 34.4% of adultsHaiti: 5.38 years, 8% of adultsHungary: 12.3 years, 30.8% of adultsIndonesia: 8.7 years, 31% of adultsIndia: 6.88 years, 22.6% of adultsIreland: 11.7 years, 18.2% of adultsIran, Islamic Rep.: 10.8 years, 11.9% of adultsIraq: 6.78 years, 20.1% of adultsIceland: 13.9 years, 9.2% of adultsIsrael: 13.5 years, 21.2% of adultsItaly: 10.8 years, 22.4% of adultsJamaica: 9.96 years, 11.5% of adultsJordan: 10.2 years, 34.1% of adultsJapan: 12.7 years, 17.5% of adultsKazakhstan: 12.5 years, 21.1% of adultsKenya: 8.62 years, 9.6% of adultsKyrgyz Republic: 12.1 years, 22.2% of adultsCambodia: 5.2 years, 18.6% of adultsKiribati: 9.13 years, 37.7% of adultsKorea, Rep.: 12.7 years, 18.6% of adultsKuwait: 7.57 years, 19.4% of adultsLao PDR: 6.06 years, 25.4% of adultsLebanon: 10.4 years, 46.9% of adultsLiberia: 6.17 years, 5.2% of adultsLibya: 7.78 years, 24.2% of adultsSt. Lucia: 8.61 years, 13.9% of adultsSri Lanka: 10.8 years, 20.7% of adultsLesotho: 7.73 years, 28% of adultsLithuania: 13.6 years, 31.4% of adultsLuxembourg: 12.6 years, 24.5% of adultsLatvia: 13.4 years, 34.6% of adultsMorocco: 6.2 years, 12.5% of adultsMoldova: 11.8 years, 28.8% of adultsMadagascar: 4.59 years, 25.6% of adultsMaldives: 7.41 years, 25.5% of adultsMexico: 9.35 years, 15.7% of adultsMarshall Islands: 11.6 years, 29.9% of adultsNorth Macedonia: 10.2 years, 39.6% of adultsMali: 1.63 years, 7.4% of adultsMalta: 12.4 years, 24.6% of adultsMyanmar: 6.38 years, 43.4% of adultsMontenegro: 12.8 years, 37.2% of adultsMongolia: 9.42 years, 29.5% of adultsMozambique: 4.59 years, 10.5% of adultsMauritania: 4.85 years, 9.9% of adultsMauritius: 10.1 years, 17.7% of adultsMalawi: 5.24 years, 8.9% of adultsMalaysia: 11.1 years, 16.9% of adultsNiger: 1.41 years, 7.4% of adultsNigeria: 7.59 years, 3.1% of adultsNetherlands: 12.7 years, 20.5% of adultsNorway: 13.1 years, 12.9% of adultsNepal: 4.5 years, 28.7% of adultsNaoero: 9.45 years, 34.8% of adultsNew Zealand: 12.9 years, 9.3% of adultsOman: 11.9 years, 8.5% of adultsPakistan: 4.32 years, 17.9% of adultsPanama: 10.8 years, 4.8% of adultsPeru: 10.2 years, 12.4% of adultsPhilippines: 9.98 years, 19.9% of adultsPalau: 13.3 years, 23% of adultsPapua New Guinea: 4.96 years, 39.3% of adultsPoland: 13.2 years, 21.7% of adultsPortugal: 9.7 years, 28.6% of adultsParaguay: 8.93 years, 6.4% of adultsWest Bank and Gaza: 10.1 years, 35.5% of adultsQatar: 10.8 years, 12.5% of adultsRomania: 11.6 years, 29.7% of adultsRussian Federation: 12.4 years, 27% of adultsRwanda: 4.88 years, 10.1% of adultsSaudi Arabia: 11.6 years, 14.7% of adultsSenegal: 2.93 years, 5.4% of adultsSingapore: 12 years, 13.8% of adultsSolomon Islands: 5.88 years, 38.4% of adultsSierra Leone: 3.54 years, 11.3% of adultsEl Salvador: 7.3 years, 8.2% of adultsSerbia: 11.6 years, 39.7% of adultsSao Tome and Principe: 5.99 years, 8.3% of adultsSlovak Republic: 13.1 years, 29.5% of adultsSlovenia: 13 years, 20.9% of adultsSweden: 12.7 years, 20.3% of adultsEswatini: 8.69 years, 11.5% of adultsSeychelles: 11.2 years, 17.3% of adultsChad: 2.33 years, 7.4% of adultsTogo: 5.86 years, 5.8% of adultsThailand: 9.04 years, 17.8% of adultsTurkmenistan: 11.2 years, 5.4% of adultsTimor-Leste: 6.23 years, 48.8% of adultsTonga: 10.9 years, 32.1% of adultsTunisia: 7.59 years, 24.4% of adultsTurkiye: 8.99 years, 31.1% of adultsTuvalu: 10.8 years, 33.4% of adultsTanzania: 6.07 years, 7.7% of adultsUganda: 6.32 years, 7.5% of adultsUkraine: 11.1 years, 23.7% of adultsUruguay: 10.5 years, 19.3% of adultsUnited States: 13.9 years, 15.8% of adultsUzbekistan: 11.9 years, 16.3% of adultsViet Nam: 8.98 years, 21.1% of adultsVanuatu: 7.18 years, 24.9% of adultsSamoa: 11.3 years, 23.1% of adultsSouth Africa: 11.6 years, 23.7% of adultsZambia: 7.4 years, 14.3% of adultsZimbabwe: 8.93 years, 11% of adultsARECANETHISLLBNLVAMLIMMRMNENERPNGTLS

best-fit line line after adjusting

Four ways to measure the link

MethodrpCountries
Standard (Pearson), not adjusted+0.3331.3e-5164
By rank (Spearman), not adjusted+0.3631.7e-6164
Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income+0.3144.4e-5164
By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income+0.3019.2e-5164

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 164 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: +0.018 (a minus sign means it grew).

How solid is it?

Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from +0.298 (without KIR) to +0.331 (without PNG). 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: PNG (+0.017).

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 & Pacific28-0.11
Europe & Central Asia48-0.22
Latin America & Caribbean21+0.43
Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan20+0.45
Sub-Saharan Africa39+0.47

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 third55+0.38
Middle third54+0.33
Richest third55+0.01

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
Christians96+0.36
Muslims43+0.37

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
France21+0.46
Never a European colony20-0.12
Spain16+0.45
United Kingdom53+0.15

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 = +0.314 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 24years. 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 = +0.182) but mostly disappears in year-to-year changes (r = —). That points to slow trends particular to each country, not the two measures moving together from year to year.

Across countries (adjusted)+0.314for comparison
Within countries-0.575each country vs itself
…and vs the same year elsewhere+0.182q = 0.020 · 164 countries
Year-on-year changes—q = —
The direction flips. Comparing each country only with itself gives -0.57. Also taking out what happened to the whole world each year gives +0.18. So the first figure was picking up a trend both measures share with worldwide progress, not a link between them.
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.
  • Much of the within-country association disappears once shared global year effects are removed, which points to a common worldwide trend rather than a country-level relationship.

1,303 country-years (one country in one year), 164 countries, 2000–2023, about 8 years each on average. Share of the variation that happens within countries over time: 7% for Mean years of schooling, 17% for Tobacco use. 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

0.30−0.3-80+10years Tobacco use trails Mean years of schooling →lag -8: r = 0.123 (n = 815)lag -7: r = 0.145 (n = 815)lag -6: r = 0.166 (n = 815)lag -5: r = 0.168 (n = 815)lag -4: r = 0.171 (n = 795)lag -3: r = 0.171 (n = 973)lag -2: r = 0.177 (n = 972)lag -1: r = 0.184 (n = 1,135)lag +0: r = 0.182 (n = 1,303)lag +1: r = 0.210 (n = 1,452)lag +2: r = 0.213 (n = 1,449)lag +3: r = 0.210 (n = 1,444)lag +4: r = 0.212 (n = 1,443)lag +5: r = 0.215 (n = 1,437)lag +6: r = 0.234 (n = 1,410)lag +7: r = 0.235 (n = 1,407)lag +8: r = 0.244 (n = 1,391)lag +9: r = 0.236 (n = 1,389)lag +10: r = 0.225 (n = 1,389)

Same year (lag 0): +0.182. 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 (+0.24 at lag +8) is higher than the same-year one by 0.06. That gap is not a finding. It is the largest of 19 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


years
% of adults		Years
Germany DEU14.322%2023, 2024
Switzerland CHE13.923.1%2023, 2024
United States USA13.915.8%2023, 2024
Iceland ISL13.99.2%2023, 2024
Canada CAN13.911.2%2023, 2024
Lithuania LTU13.631.4%2023, 2024
Estonia EST13.626.1%2023, 2024
Israel ISR13.521.2%2023, 2024
United Kingdom GBR13.512.8%2023, 2024
Latvia LVA13.434.6%2023, 2024
Palau PLW13.323%2023, 2024
Poland POL13.221.7%2023, 2024
Norway NOR13.112.9%2023, 2024
Slovak Republic SVK13.129.5%2023, 2024
Denmark DNK1315.7%2023, 2024

United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2025
World Bank, World Development Indicators

Sources

Mean years of schooling

Mean years of schooling, adults aged 25 and over

United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report Office · via Our World in Data · CC BY 3.0 IGO · updated annual

The schooling adults actually completed, decades ago for most of them. Expected schooling looks ahead at children; this looks back at adults. It is the one to read for the education of the workforce rather than of children.

Tobacco use

Prevalence of current tobacco use (% of adults, age-standardised)

World Health Organization · CC BY 4.0 · updated quarterly

Published every other year.

How this was computed

Data used: most recent value in 2010-2025; values come from 2023–2024. 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 Mean years of schooling and Tobacco use

This page shows that two measures go together. It does not show that Mean years of schooling changes Tobacco use, or the reverse. These figures also describe countries, not individual people. See the ecological fallacy.

More links with Mean years of schooling or Tobacco use