placestats

Mean years of schooling vs. Youth not in work or study

Fades after adjusting for income

Across 170 countries, Mean years of schooling and Youth not in work or study rise and fall together at r = -0.50 (on a scale from −1 to +1, where 0 means no link). Comparing only countries with similar income (GDP per person) shrinks it to -0.05, which could easily be chance (q = 0.75, 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 mean years of schooling, 6.63 to 11.7 years, youth not in work or study is better by 8.83% of 15 to 24 year olds at the top of that range than the bottom. Comparing only countries with similar national income, the gap is 1.38% of 15 to 24 year olds.

Link before adjusting (r)-0.501p = 3.6e-12 · 170 countries
After adjusting for national income-0.053p = 0.492 · likely range [-0.20, +0.10]
p, allowing for regions0.605standard error 0.097 · 7 regions
Check for luck (q)0.754across 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.

Mean years of schooling · yearslink with income +0.82 · proxy
Youth not in work or study · % of 15 to 24 year oldslink with income -0.66 · 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

Mean years of schooling · years →Youth not in work or study · % of 15 to 24 year olds →1.4114.33.14%65.7%Afghanistan: 2.51 years, 43.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsAngola: 5.96 years, 24.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsAlbania: 10.2 years, 21% of 15 to 24 year oldsUnited Arab Emirates: 13 years, 7.46% of 15 to 24 year oldsArgentina: 11.2 years, 15.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsArmenia: 11.3 years, 20.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsAntigua and Barbuda: 11.6 years, 15.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsAustralia: 12.9 years, 8.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsAustria: 12.4 years, 13.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsAzerbaijan: 11.1 years, 9.64% of 15 to 24 year oldsBurundi: 3.47 years, 11.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsBelgium: 12.7 years, 7.35% of 15 to 24 year oldsBenin: 3.19 years, 14.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsBurkina Faso: 2.27 years, 24.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsBangladesh: 6.79 years, 15.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsBulgaria: 11.5 years, 11.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsBosnia and Herzegovina: 11 years, 14.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsBelarus: 12.3 years, 65.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsBelize: 8.76 years, 24.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsBolivia: 10 years, 7.96% of 15 to 24 year oldsBrazil: 8.43 years, 18.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsBarbados: 9.93 years, 29% of 15 to 24 year oldsBrunei Darussalam: 9.28 years, 18.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsBhutan: 5.84 years, 15.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsBotswana: 10.5 years, 38% of 15 to 24 year oldsCanada: 13.9 years, 13.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsSwitzerland: 13.9 years, 6.99% of 15 to 24 year oldsChile: 11.3 years, 13.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsCote d'Ivoire: 4.87 years, 18.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsCameroon: 6.57 years, 23.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsCongo, Dem. Rep.: 7.38 years, 31.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsColombia: 9.03 years, 22% of 15 to 24 year oldsComoros: 6.01 years, 21.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsCabo Verde: 6.09 years, 28% of 15 to 24 year oldsCosta Rica: 8.84 years, 19.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsCyprus: 12.6 years, 9.37% of 15 to 24 year oldsCzechia: 13 years, 4.89% of 15 to 24 year oldsGermany: 14.3 years, 8.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsDjibouti: 3.95 years, 44% of 15 to 24 year oldsDenmark: 13 years, 7.91% of 15 to 24 year oldsDominican Republic: 9.44 years, 24.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsAlgeria: 7.42 years, 20.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsEcuador: 8.97 years, 17.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsEgypt, Arab Rep.: 10.1 years, 23.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsSpain: 10.8 years, 9.42% of 15 to 24 year oldsEstonia: 13.6 years, 10.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsEthiopia: 2.4 years, 17.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsFinland: 13 years, 9.13% of 15 to 24 year oldsFiji: 10.4 years, 20.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsFrance: 11.8 years, 11% of 15 to 24 year oldsMicronesia, Fed. Sts.: 7.33 years, 28.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsGabon: 9.69 years, 20.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsUnited Kingdom: 13.5 years, 14.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsGeorgia: 12.7 years, 15.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsGhana: 7.11 years, 18.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsGuinea: 2.49 years, 34.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsGambia, The: 4.67 years, 36.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsGuinea-Bissau: 3.67 years, 13.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsEquatorial Guinea: 8.28 years, 17.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsGreece: 11.6 years, 10.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsGrenada: 9.45 years, 20.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsGuatemala: 5.85 years, 22.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsGuyana: 8.7 years, 31.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsHong Kong SAR, China: 12.3 years, 5.95% of 15 to 24 year oldsHonduras: 7.51 years, 29% of 15 to 24 year oldsCroatia: 12.1 years, 8.97% of 15 to 24 year oldsHaiti: 5.38 years, 21.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsHungary: 12.3 years, 9.55% of 15 to 24 year oldsIndonesia: 8.7 years, 21.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsIndia: 6.88 years, 25.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsIreland: 11.7 years, 6.37% of 15 to 24 year oldsIran, Islamic Rep.: 10.8 years, 24.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsIraq: 6.78 years, 36.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsIceland: 13.9 years, 4% of 15 to 24 year oldsIsrael: 13.5 years, 15.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsItaly: 10.8 years, 9.91% of 15 to 24 year oldsJamaica: 9.96 years, 19.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsJordan: 10.2 years, 29.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsJapan: 12.7 years, 3.14% of 15 to 24 year oldsKazakhstan: 12.5 years, 9.49% of 15 to 24 year oldsKenya: 8.62 years, 18.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsKyrgyz Republic: 12.1 years, 19.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsCambodia: 5.2 years, 9.73% of 15 to 24 year oldsKiribati: 9.13 years, 35.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsLao PDR: 6.06 years, 22.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsLebanon: 10.4 years, 23.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsLiberia: 6.17 years, 39.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsSt. Lucia: 8.61 years, 25.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsSri Lanka: 10.8 years, 17.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsLesotho: 7.73 years, 38% of 15 to 24 year oldsLithuania: 13.6 years, 12.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsLuxembourg: 12.6 years, 7.73% of 15 to 24 year oldsLatvia: 13.4 years, 9.12% of 15 to 24 year oldsMorocco: 6.2 years, 35.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsMoldova: 11.8 years, 9.05% of 15 to 24 year oldsMadagascar: 4.59 years, 24.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsMaldives: 7.41 years, 26.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsMexico: 9.35 years, 16.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsMarshall Islands: 11.6 years, 40% of 15 to 24 year oldsNorth Macedonia: 10.2 years, 19.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsMali: 1.63 years, 30.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsMalta: 12.4 years, 8.36% of 15 to 24 year oldsMyanmar: 6.38 years, 15% of 15 to 24 year oldsMontenegro: 12.8 years, 14.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsMongolia: 9.42 years, 9.03% of 15 to 24 year oldsMozambique: 4.59 years, 19.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsMauritania: 4.85 years, 44.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsMauritius: 10.1 years, 13.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsMalawi: 5.24 years, 39.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsMalaysia: 11.1 years, 10.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsNamibia: 7.27 years, 31.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsNiger: 1.41 years, 15.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsNigeria: 7.59 years, 11.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsNicaragua: 9.93 years, 24.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsNetherlands: 12.7 years, 3.91% of 15 to 24 year oldsNorway: 13.1 years, 6.15% of 15 to 24 year oldsNepal: 4.5 years, 34.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsNaoero: 9.45 years, 50.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsNew Zealand: 12.9 years, 12.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsOman: 11.9 years, 25.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsPakistan: 4.32 years, 28.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsPanama: 10.8 years, 15.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsPeru: 10.2 years, 22.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsPhilippines: 9.98 years, 16.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsPalau: 13.3 years, 11.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsPapua New Guinea: 4.96 years, 27.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsPoland: 13.2 years, 10.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsPortugal: 9.7 years, 6.91% of 15 to 24 year oldsParaguay: 8.93 years, 18.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsWest Bank and Gaza: 10.1 years, 25.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsRomania: 11.6 years, 16.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsRussian Federation: 12.4 years, 6.68% of 15 to 24 year oldsRwanda: 4.88 years, 15.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsSaudi Arabia: 11.6 years, 16.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsSudan: 3.96 years, 46.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsSenegal: 2.93 years, 34.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsSingapore: 12 years, 6.46% of 15 to 24 year oldsSolomon Islands: 5.88 years, 7.04% of 15 to 24 year oldsSierra Leone: 3.54 years, 25.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsEl Salvador: 7.3 years, 19.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsSomalia, Fed. Rep.: 1.9 years, 51% of 15 to 24 year oldsSerbia: 11.6 years, 12.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsSao Tome and Principe: 5.99 years, 45.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsSuriname: 8.43 years, 18.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsSlovak Republic: 13.1 years, 8.02% of 15 to 24 year oldsSlovenia: 13 years, 6.83% of 15 to 24 year oldsSweden: 12.7 years, 4.95% of 15 to 24 year oldsEswatini: 8.69 years, 36.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsSeychelles: 11.2 years, 17.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsChad: 2.33 years, 42.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsTogo: 5.86 years, 13% of 15 to 24 year oldsThailand: 9.04 years, 12.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsTajikistan: 11.3 years, 41.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsTimor-Leste: 6.23 years, 29.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsTonga: 10.9 years, 25.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsTrinidad and Tobago: 10.8 years, 15.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsTunisia: 7.59 years, 22.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsTurkiye: 8.99 years, 23.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsTuvalu: 10.8 years, 34.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsTanzania: 6.07 years, 15.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsUganda: 6.32 years, 13.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsUkraine: 11.1 years, 16.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsUruguay: 10.5 years, 12.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsUnited States: 13.9 years, 11.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsViet Nam: 8.98 years, 10.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsVanuatu: 7.18 years, 29.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsSamoa: 11.3 years, 30.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsSouth Africa: 11.6 years, 34.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsZambia: 7.4 years, 26.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsZimbabwe: 8.93 years, 28.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsAFGBDIBENBLRCHEDEUISLNERNRUSOMTCDTJK

best-fit line line after adjusting

Four ways to measure the link

MethodrpCountries
Standard (Pearson), not adjusted-0.5013.6e-12170
By rank (Spearman), not adjusted-0.5892.8e-17170
Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income-0.0530.492170
By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income-0.1130.143170

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 170 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: +0.447 (a minus sign means it grew).

How solid is it?

Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from -0.088 (without BLR) to -0.020 (without GUY). 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: BLR (-0.035).

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+0.28
Europe & Central Asia46-0.08
Latin America & Caribbean27-0.45
Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan17-0.51
Sub-Saharan Africa44+0.03

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 third57+0.05
Middle third56-0.16
Richest third57-0.25

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.

nr
Christians104+0.02
Muslims42-0.16

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
France22-0.39
Never a European colony17+0.08
Spain20-0.50
United Kingdom55-0.07

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 = -0.090 after dropping 3 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 34years. 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 = -0.043, 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 mean years of schooling moved did not tend to see their youth not in work or study move with it.

Across countries (adjusted)-0.053for comparison
Within countries-0.277each country vs itself
…and vs the same year elsewhere-0.043q = 0.618 · 120 countries
Year-on-year changes-0.043q = 0.262
Read with care.
  • 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.

2,125 country-years (one country in one year), 120 countries, 1990–2023, about 18 years each on average. Share of the variation that happens within countries over time: 10% for Mean years of schooling, 20% for Youth not in work or study. 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

0.10−0.1-100+10years Youth not in work or study trails Mean years of schooling →lag -10: r = 0.038 (n = 1,100)lag -9: r = 0.023 (n = 1,189)lag -8: r = 0.002 (n = 1,280)lag -7: r = -0.030 (n = 1,387)lag -6: r = -0.043 (n = 1,487)lag -5: r = -0.056 (n = 1,573)lag -4: r = -0.063 (n = 1,682)lag -3: r = -0.050 (n = 1,793)lag -2: r = -0.060 (n = 1,896)lag -1: r = -0.044 (n = 2,018)lag +0: r = -0.043 (n = 2,125)lag +1: r = -0.041 (n = 2,206)lag +2: r = -0.034 (n = 2,265)lag +3: r = -0.036 (n = 2,248)lag +4: r = -0.041 (n = 2,233)lag +5: r = -0.046 (n = 2,209)lag +6: r = -0.053 (n = 2,188)lag +7: r = -0.065 (n = 2,160)lag +8: r = -0.066 (n = 2,128)lag +9: r = -0.071 (n = 2,098)lag +10: r = -0.076 (n = 2,059)

Same year (lag 0): -0.043. 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.

This curve peaks at the edge of the window (lag +10), so it is still drifting where the search stops. That pattern usually reflects a slow trend left over in the data, not a link with real timing. The peak value should not be read as the “true” link at the right lag.

The data


years
% of 15 to 24 year olds		Years
Germany DEU14.38.2%2023, 2025
Switzerland CHE13.96.99%2023, 2025
United States USA13.911.6%2023, 2025
Iceland ISL13.94%2023, 2025
Canada CAN13.913.3%2023, 2025
Lithuania LTU13.612.5%2023, 2025
Estonia EST13.610.9%2023, 2025
Israel ISR13.515.3%2023, 2024
United Kingdom GBR13.514.4%2023, 2025
Latvia LVA13.49.12%2023, 2025
Palau PLW13.311.3%2023
Poland POL13.210.1%2023, 2025
Norway NOR13.16.15%2023, 2025
Slovak Republic SVK13.18.02%2023, 2025
Denmark DNK137.91%2023, 2025

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.

Youth not in work or study

Share of youth not in education, employment or training, total (% of youth population)

International Labour Organization · CC BY 4.0 · updated quarterly

From labour force surveys, so yearly for about a hundred countries and occasional elsewhere.

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 Mean years of schooling and Youth not in work or study

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

More links with Mean years of schooling or Youth not in work or study