placestats

Physicians vs. Primary completion

Fades after adjusting for income

Across 161 countries, Physicians and Primary completion rise and fall together at r = +0.63 (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 = 0.80, 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: correlation moves sharply once outliers are trimmed.

Comparing countries across the middle half of primary completion, 82.1% to 99.5% of children, physicians is better by 1.07 per 1,000 people at the top of that range than the bottom. Comparing only countries with similar national income, the gap is 0.0525 per 1,000 people.

Link before adjusting (r)+0.625p = 7.3e-19 · 161 countries
After adjusting for national income+0.035p = 0.664 · likely range [-0.12, +0.19]
p, allowing for regions0.587standard error 0.060 · 7 regions
Check for luck (q)0.795across 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.

Physicians · per 1,000 peoplelink with income +0.85 · proxy
Primary completion · % of childrenlink with income +0.83 · proxy

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

Physicians · per 1,000 people →Primary completion · % of children →0.0386.5828.8%100%Afghanistan: 0.317 per 1,000 people, 55.4% of childrenAngola: 0.244 per 1,000 people, 65.2% of childrenAlbania: 1.88 per 1,000 people, 97.4% of childrenArgentina: 5.11 per 1,000 people, 96.7% of childrenArmenia: 3.36 per 1,000 people, 99.5% of childrenAustralia: 4.09 per 1,000 people, 99.5% of childrenAustria: 5.51 per 1,000 people, 100% of childrenAzerbaijan: 3.19 per 1,000 people, 98.4% of childrenBurundi: 0.078 per 1,000 people, 60.5% of childrenBelgium: 3.57 per 1,000 people, 98.9% of childrenBenin: 0.216 per 1,000 people, 70.1% of childrenBurkina Faso: 0.148 per 1,000 people, 72.2% of childrenBangladesh: 0.722 per 1,000 people, 90.8% of childrenBulgaria: 4.33 per 1,000 people, 99.1% of childrenBosnia and Herzegovina: 2.58 per 1,000 people, 99.8% of childrenBelarus: 4.72 per 1,000 people, 99.8% of childrenBelize: 1.09 per 1,000 people, 90.2% of childrenBolivia: 1.28 per 1,000 people, 98.5% of childrenBrazil: 2.36 per 1,000 people, 93% of childrenBarbados: 2.96 per 1,000 people, 99.5% of childrenBhutan: 0.553 per 1,000 people, 93.6% of childrenBotswana: 0.379 per 1,000 people, 99% of childrenCentral African Republic: 0.074 per 1,000 people, 30.8% of childrenCanada: 2.82 per 1,000 people, 99.9% of childrenSwitzerland: 4.48 per 1,000 people, 99.8% of childrenChile: 3.33 per 1,000 people, 97.4% of childrenChina: 3.11 per 1,000 people, 99% of childrenCote d'Ivoire: 0.166 per 1,000 people, 78.8% of childrenCameroon: 0.136 per 1,000 people, 77.8% of childrenCongo, Dem. Rep.: 0.208 per 1,000 people, 68.4% of childrenCongo, Rep.: 0.173 per 1,000 people, 93.9% of childrenColombia: 2.54 per 1,000 people, 95.5% of childrenComoros: 0.424 per 1,000 people, 86.1% of childrenCosta Rica: 2.69 per 1,000 people, 98.9% of childrenCyprus: 3.56 per 1,000 people, 99% of childrenCzechia: 4.35 per 1,000 people, 99.9% of childrenGermany: 4.53 per 1,000 people, 100% of childrenDjibouti: 0.211 per 1,000 people, 89.4% of childrenDenmark: 4.5 per 1,000 people, 99.9% of childrenDominican Republic: 2.43 per 1,000 people, 96.1% of childrenAlgeria: 1.66 per 1,000 people, 96.5% of childrenEcuador: 2.31 per 1,000 people, 99.5% of childrenEgypt, Arab Rep.: 0.671 per 1,000 people, 96.3% of childrenSpain: 4.29 per 1,000 people, 98.6% of childrenEstonia: 3.47 per 1,000 people, 99.5% of childrenEthiopia: 0.143 per 1,000 people, 64.6% of childrenFinland: 3.61 per 1,000 people, 99.7% of childrenFiji: 0.813 per 1,000 people, 98.9% of childrenFrance: 3.28 per 1,000 people, 99.6% of childrenGabon: 0.521 per 1,000 people, 74.3% of childrenUnited Kingdom: 3.3 per 1,000 people, 99.9% of childrenGeorgia: 5.64 per 1,000 people, 99.8% of childrenGhana: 0.266 per 1,000 people, 79.1% of childrenGuinea: 0.21 per 1,000 people, 61% of childrenGambia, The: 0.09 per 1,000 people, 74.8% of childrenGuinea-Bissau: 0.252 per 1,000 people, 30.5% of childrenEquatorial Guinea: 0.153 per 1,000 people, 73.6% of childrenGreece: 6.58 per 1,000 people, 99.3% of childrenGuatemala: 1.28 per 1,000 people, 87% of childrenGuyana: 1.39 per 1,000 people, 99.2% of childrenHonduras: 0.489 per 1,000 people, 89.6% of childrenCroatia: 3.91 per 1,000 people, 99.8% of childrenHaiti: 0.292 per 1,000 people, 50.5% of childrenHungary: 3.46 per 1,000 people, 99.2% of childrenIndonesia: 0.524 per 1,000 people, 98.9% of childrenIndia: 0.723 per 1,000 people, 96.5% of childrenIreland: 3.88 per 1,000 people, 99.8% of childrenIran, Islamic Rep.: 1.81 per 1,000 people, 96.7% of childrenIraq: 1.02 per 1,000 people, 83.3% of childrenIceland: 4.37 per 1,000 people, 97.4% of childrenIsrael: 3.8 per 1,000 people, 100% of childrenItaly: 4.19 per 1,000 people, 99.9% of childrenJamaica: 0.46 per 1,000 people, 99.4% of childrenJordan: 2.85 per 1,000 people, 98.5% of childrenJapan: 2.65 per 1,000 people, 100% of childrenKazakhstan: 3.75 per 1,000 people, 99.7% of childrenKenya: 0.289 per 1,000 people, 88.4% of childrenKyrgyz Republic: 1.57 per 1,000 people, 99.4% of childrenCambodia: 0.211 per 1,000 people, 82.7% of childrenKiribati: 0.193 per 1,000 people, 94.4% of childrenKorea, Rep.: 2.61 per 1,000 people, 100% of childrenLao PDR: 0.331 per 1,000 people, 70.1% of childrenLiberia: 0.178 per 1,000 people, 29.8% of childrenSt. Lucia: 4.23 per 1,000 people, 99.6% of childrenLesotho: 0.235 per 1,000 people, 79.8% of childrenLithuania: 4.47 per 1,000 people, 99.7% of childrenLuxembourg: 2.98 per 1,000 people, 98.6% of childrenLatvia: 3.4 per 1,000 people, 99.6% of childrenMorocco: 0.74 per 1,000 people, 84.6% of childrenMoldova: 4.02 per 1,000 people, 98.8% of childrenMadagascar: 0.172 per 1,000 people, 54% of childrenMaldives: 2.23 per 1,000 people, 99.4% of childrenMexico: 2.59 per 1,000 people, 98.2% of childrenNorth Macedonia: 2.94 per 1,000 people, 99.5% of childrenMali: 0.188 per 1,000 people, 50% of childrenMalta: 4.51 per 1,000 people, 98.1% of childrenMyanmar: 0.757 per 1,000 people, 89.8% of childrenMontenegro: 2.78 per 1,000 people, 98.9% of childrenMongolia: 4.13 per 1,000 people, 99.7% of childrenMozambique: 0.175 per 1,000 people, 53.5% of childrenMauritania: 0.261 per 1,000 people, 51.8% of childrenMauritius: 1.44 per 1,000 people, 99.9% of childrenMalawi: 0.054 per 1,000 people, 57.7% of childrenMalaysia: 2.34 per 1,000 people, 99.8% of childrenNamibia: 0.553 per 1,000 people, 86.3% of childrenNiger: 0.038 per 1,000 people, 77.5% of childrenNigeria: 0.38 per 1,000 people, 76.8% of childrenNicaragua: 0.682 per 1,000 people, 77.7% of childrenNetherlands: 3.88 per 1,000 people, 99.8% of childrenNorway: 4.97 per 1,000 people, 99.8% of childrenNepal: 1.01 per 1,000 people, 90.8% of childrenNaoero: 1.27 per 1,000 people, 89.2% of childrenPakistan: 1.16 per 1,000 people, 59.5% of childrenPanama: 1.63 per 1,000 people, 95.1% of childrenPeru: 1.69 per 1,000 people, 98.1% of childrenPhilippines: 0.792 per 1,000 people, 96.2% of childrenPapua New Guinea: 0.061 per 1,000 people, 66% of childrenPoland: 4.03 per 1,000 people, 99.7% of childrenPortugal: 5.85 per 1,000 people, 99.5% of childrenParaguay: 3.89 per 1,000 people, 94.9% of childrenWest Bank and Gaza: 2.17 per 1,000 people, 99.6% of childrenQatar: 3.02 per 1,000 people, 100% of childrenRomania: 3.63 per 1,000 people, 99.1% of childrenRussian Federation: 5.11 per 1,000 people, 99.7% of childrenRwanda: 0.09 per 1,000 people, 71.9% of childrenSudan: 0.25 per 1,000 people, 75.6% of childrenSenegal: 0.109 per 1,000 people, 65.7% of childrenSierra Leone: 0.134 per 1,000 people, 68.8% of childrenEl Salvador: 1.62 per 1,000 people, 93.7% of childrenSomalia, Fed. Rep.: 0.048 per 1,000 people, 28.8% of childrenSerbia: 3.1 per 1,000 people, 99.7% of childrenSao Tome and Principe: 0.464 per 1,000 people, 93.7% of childrenSuriname: 1.35 per 1,000 people, 91.3% of childrenSlovak Republic: 3.7 per 1,000 people, 99.8% of childrenSlovenia: 3.37 per 1,000 people, 99.5% of childrenSweden: 4.41 per 1,000 people, 100% of childrenEswatini: 0.557 per 1,000 people, 82.5% of childrenSyrian Arab Republic: 1.52 per 1,000 people, 98.1% of childrenChad: 0.085 per 1,000 people, 37.8% of childrenTogo: 0.08 per 1,000 people, 87.8% of childrenThailand: 0.541 per 1,000 people, 99.2% of childrenTajikistan: 1.87 per 1,000 people, 98.8% of childrenTurkmenistan: 1.93 per 1,000 people, 99.8% of childrenTimor-Leste: 0.752 per 1,000 people, 82.1% of childrenTonga: 1.01 per 1,000 people, 98.4% of childrenTrinidad and Tobago: 4.16 per 1,000 people, 98% of childrenTunisia: 1.31 per 1,000 people, 96.9% of childrenTurkiye: 2.24 per 1,000 people, 98% of childrenTuvalu: 1.35 per 1,000 people, 98.8% of childrenTanzania: 0.134 per 1,000 people, 75.7% of childrenUganda: 0.191 per 1,000 people, 30.4% of childrenUkraine: 3.53 per 1,000 people, 99.6% of childrenUruguay: 4.67 per 1,000 people, 97.9% of childrenUnited States: 3.68 per 1,000 people, 100% of childrenUzbekistan: 2.81 per 1,000 people, 99.8% of childrenViet Nam: 1.11 per 1,000 people, 98.6% of childrenVanuatu: 0.164 per 1,000 people, 79.8% of childrenSamoa: 0.561 per 1,000 people, 98.5% of childrenSouth Africa: 0.794 per 1,000 people, 97.1% of childrenZambia: 0.324 per 1,000 people, 67.4% of childrenZimbabwe: 0.136 per 1,000 people, 86.9% of childrenBWACAFGEOGNBGRCJAMLBRPRTSOMTHA

best-fit line line after adjusting

Four ways to measure the link

MethodrpCountries
Standard (Pearson), not adjusted+0.6257.3e-19161
By rank (Spearman), not adjusted+0.8184.8e-40161
Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income+0.0350.664161
By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income+0.3544.3e-6161

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 161 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: +0.591 (a minus sign means it grew).

How solid is it?

Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from +0.013 (without PSE) to +0.055 (without CAF). 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: PSE (-0.022).

Fragile: this link may not hold up.
  • correlation moves sharply once outliers are trimmed

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 & Pacific22+0.17
Europe & Central Asia48+0.30
Latin America & Caribbean25+0.10
Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan15+0.21
Sub-Saharan Africa44+0.07

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 third54+0.37
Middle third53+0.34
Richest third54+0.14

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
Christians101-0.01
Muslims41+0.34

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
France24+0.33
Never a European colony19+0.20
Spain19+0.37
United Kingdom47-0.07

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 = +0.196 after dropping 12 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.

The link shows up within countries over time (r = -0.207) but mostly disappears in year-to-year changes (r = -0.045). That points to slow trends particular to each country, not the two measures moving together from year to year.

Across countries (adjusted)+0.035for comparison
Within countries+0.165each country vs itself
…and vs the same year elsewhere-0.207q = 0.001 · 160 countries
Year-on-year changes-0.045q = 4.0e-5
The direction flips. Comparing each country only with itself gives +0.17. Also taking out what happened to the whole world each year gives -0.21. So the first figure was picking up a trend both measures share with worldwide progress, not a link between them.

3,375 country-years (one country in one year), 160 countries, 1990–2023, about 21 years each on average. Share of the variation that happens within countries over time: 10% for Physicians, 10% for Primary completion. 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

0.30−0.3-100+10years Primary completion trails Physicians →lag -10: r = -0.206 (n = 2,463)lag -9: r = -0.213 (n = 2,541)lag -8: r = -0.215 (n = 2,621)lag -7: r = -0.223 (n = 2,713)lag -6: r = -0.225 (n = 2,803)lag -5: r = -0.225 (n = 2,914)lag -4: r = -0.221 (n = 2,992)lag -3: r = -0.209 (n = 3,091)lag -2: r = -0.209 (n = 3,172)lag -1: r = -0.205 (n = 3,253)lag +0: r = -0.207 (n = 3,375)lag +1: r = -0.212 (n = 3,375)lag +2: r = -0.216 (n = 3,375)lag +3: r = -0.217 (n = 3,325)lag +4: r = -0.207 (n = 3,212)lag +5: r = -0.202 (n = 3,101)lag +6: r = -0.194 (n = 2,981)lag +7: r = -0.183 (n = 2,863)lag +8: r = -0.172 (n = 2,728)lag +9: r = -0.156 (n = 2,596)lag +10: r = -0.146 (n = 2,482)

Same year (lag 0): -0.207. 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


per 1,000 people
% of children		Years
Greece GRC6.5899.3%2022, 2025
Portugal PRT5.8599.5%2022, 2025
Georgia GEO5.6499.8%2023, 2025
Austria AUT5.51100%2023, 2025
Russian Federation RUS5.1199.7%2022, 2025
Argentina ARG5.1196.7%2023, 2025
Norway NOR4.9799.8%2023, 2025
Belarus BLR4.7299.8%2023, 2025
Uruguay URY4.6797.9%2022, 2025
Germany DEU4.53100%2022, 2025
Malta MLT4.5198.1%2022, 2025
Denmark DNK4.599.9%2021, 2025
Switzerland CHE4.4899.8%2022, 2025
Lithuania LTU4.4799.7%2022, 2025
Sweden SWE4.41100%2021, 2025

World Bank, World Development Indicators
UNESCO Institute for Statistics, SDG indicator 4.1.2 modelled estimates

Sources

Physicians

Physicians (per 1,000 people)

World Health Organization · CC BY 4.0 · updated quarterly

Reported irregularly, so the latest value in the time window used is from a different year for different countries. Hospital beds, already on the site, have no "better" direction, since more beds is not plainly better. More doctors is closer to plainly better, so a direction is set on that basis.

Primary completion

Primary completion rate, modelled estimate

UNESCO Institute for Statistics · via Our World in Data · CC BY 3.0 IGO · updated annual

The share of children who finish primary school. UNESCO estimates it from household surveys and uses a statistical model to fill in across years. It is not the World Bank's primary completion rate, which is a ratio built from school enrolment counts of children entering the last grade. This one asks whether the child actually finished.

How this was computed

Data used: most recent value in 2010-2025; values come from 2013–2025. 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 Physicians and Primary completion

This page shows that two measures go together. It does not show that Physicians changes Primary completion, or the reverse. These figures also describe countries, not individual people. See the ecological fallacy.

More links with Physicians or Primary completion