placestats

PISA maths vs. Youth not in work or study

Fades after adjusting for income

Across 84 countries, PISA maths 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 -0.17, which could easily be chance (q = 0.34, 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: leave-one-out range spans 0.29 in r.

Comparing countries across the middle half of pisa maths, 389 to 482 PISA points, youth not in work or study is better by 7.33% 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 3.44% of 15 to 24 year olds.

Link before adjusting (r)-0.505p = 9.8e-7 · 84 countries
After adjusting for national income-0.169p = 0.126 · likely range [-0.37, +0.05]
p, allowing for regions0.145standard error 0.094 · 5 regions
Check for luck (q)0.336across 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.

PISA maths · PISA pointslink with income +0.79 · high
Youth not in work or study · % of 15 to 24 year oldslink with income -0.63 · 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

PISA maths · PISA points →Youth not in work or study · % of 15 to 24 year olds →3365753.14%65.7%Albania: 368 PISA points, 21% of 15 to 24 year oldsUnited Arab Emirates: 431 PISA points, 8.92% of 15 to 24 year oldsArgentina: 378 PISA points, 15.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsAustralia: 487 PISA points, 8.53% of 15 to 24 year oldsAustria: 487 PISA points, 13.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsBelgium: 489 PISA points, 8.15% of 15 to 24 year oldsBulgaria: 417 PISA points, 10.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsBosnia and Herzegovina: 406 PISA points, 14.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsBelarus: 472 PISA points, 65.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsBrazil: 379 PISA points, 18.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsBrunei Darussalam: 442 PISA points, 19% of 15 to 24 year oldsCanada: 497 PISA points, 13.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsSwitzerland: 508 PISA points, 6.99% of 15 to 24 year oldsChile: 412 PISA points, 13.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsColombia: 383 PISA points, 22% of 15 to 24 year oldsCosta Rica: 385 PISA points, 19.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsCyprus: 418 PISA points, 13.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsCzechia: 487 PISA points, 4.62% of 15 to 24 year oldsGermany: 475 PISA points, 7.58% of 15 to 24 year oldsDenmark: 489 PISA points, 6.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsDominican Republic: 339 PISA points, 24.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsAlgeria: 360 PISA points, 20.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsSpain: 473 PISA points, 10.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsEstonia: 510 PISA points, 10.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsFinland: 484 PISA points, 8.28% of 15 to 24 year oldsFrance: 474 PISA points, 12.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsUnited Kingdom: 489 PISA points, 14.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsGeorgia: 390 PISA points, 14.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsGreece: 430 PISA points, 10.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsGuatemala: 344 PISA points, 24% of 15 to 24 year oldsHong Kong SAR, China: 540 PISA points, 5.95% of 15 to 24 year oldsCroatia: 463 PISA points, 8.08% of 15 to 24 year oldsHungary: 473 PISA points, 9.98% of 15 to 24 year oldsIndonesia: 366 PISA points, 21.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsIreland: 492 PISA points, 5.67% of 15 to 24 year oldsIceland: 459 PISA points, 3.98% of 15 to 24 year oldsIsrael: 458 PISA points, 15.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsItaly: 471 PISA points, 12% of 15 to 24 year oldsJamaica: 377 PISA points, 19.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsJordan: 361 PISA points, 29.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsJapan: 536 PISA points, 3.14% of 15 to 24 year oldsKazakhstan: 425 PISA points, 9.49% of 15 to 24 year oldsCambodia: 336 PISA points, 6.32% of 15 to 24 year oldsLebanon: 393 PISA points, 23.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsLithuania: 475 PISA points, 14.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsLuxembourg: 483 PISA points, 10.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsLatvia: 483 PISA points, 9.89% of 15 to 24 year oldsMacao SAR, China: 552 PISA points, 4.96% of 15 to 24 year oldsMorocco: 365 PISA points, 35.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsMoldova: 414 PISA points, 9.05% of 15 to 24 year oldsMexico: 395 PISA points, 16.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsNorth Macedonia: 389 PISA points, 19.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsMalta: 466 PISA points, 7.84% of 15 to 24 year oldsMontenegro: 406 PISA points, 14.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsMongolia: 425 PISA points, 9.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsMalaysia: 409 PISA points, 10.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsNetherlands: 493 PISA points, 4.14% of 15 to 24 year oldsNorway: 468 PISA points, 5.82% of 15 to 24 year oldsNew Zealand: 479 PISA points, 12.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsPanama: 357 PISA points, 15.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsPeru: 391 PISA points, 22.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsPhilippines: 355 PISA points, 12.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsPoland: 489 PISA points, 10.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsPortugal: 472 PISA points, 7.02% of 15 to 24 year oldsParaguay: 338 PISA points, 18.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsWest Bank and Gaza: 366 PISA points, 25.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsRomania: 428 PISA points, 17% of 15 to 24 year oldsRussian Federation: 488 PISA points, 6.68% of 15 to 24 year oldsSaudi Arabia: 389 PISA points, 16.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsSingapore: 575 PISA points, 6.46% of 15 to 24 year oldsEl Salvador: 343 PISA points, 20.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsSerbia: 440 PISA points, 12.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsSlovak Republic: 464 PISA points, 8.75% of 15 to 24 year oldsSlovenia: 485 PISA points, 7.13% of 15 to 24 year oldsSweden: 482 PISA points, 5.58% of 15 to 24 year oldsThailand: 394 PISA points, 12.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsTrinidad and Tobago: 417 PISA points, 15.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsTunisia: 367 PISA points, 22.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsTurkiye: 453 PISA points, 22.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsUkraine: 441 PISA points, 16.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsUruguay: 409 PISA points, 14% of 15 to 24 year oldsUnited States: 465 PISA points, 11.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsViet Nam: 469 PISA points, 10.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsKosovo: 355 PISA points, 30% of 15 to 24 year oldsBLRJPNKHMMACMARPANPHLSGPTURXKX

best-fit line line after adjusting

Four ways to measure the link

MethodrpCountries
Standard (Pearson), not adjusted-0.5059.8e-784
By rank (Spearman), not adjusted-0.7066.3e-1484
Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income-0.1690.12684
By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income-0.3870.00084

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 84 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: +0.336 (a minus sign means it grew).

How solid is it?

Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from -0.428 (without BLR) to -0.138 (without VNM). 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 (-0.259).

Fragile: this link may not hold up.
  • leave-one-out range spans 0.29 in r
  • 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 & Pacific14-0.66
Europe & Central Asia43-0.00
Latin America & Caribbean15-0.42

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 third28-0.40
Middle third28+0.25
Richest third28-0.45

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
Christians55-0.01
Muslims16-0.22

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
Spain14-0.10
United Kingdom13-0.18

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 = -0.463 after dropping 2 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 20years. 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 = -0.111, 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 pisa maths moved did not tend to see their youth not in work or study move with it.

Across countries (adjusted)-0.169for comparison
Within countries+0.092each country vs itself
…and vs the same year elsewhere-0.111q = 0.503 · 45 countries
Year-on-year changes—q = —
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.

290 country-years (one country in one year), 45 countries, 2003–2022, about 6 years each on average. Share of the variation that happens within countries over time: 5% for PISA maths, 15% 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

0.20−0.2-80+6years Youth not in work or study trails PISA maths →lag -8: r = -0.066 (n = 200)lag -7: r = -0.117 (n = 235)lag -6: r = -0.013 (n = 239)lag -5: r = 0.002 (n = 237)lag -4: r = -0.135 (n = 261)lag -3: r = -0.130 (n = 262)lag -2: r = 0.001 (n = 264)lag -1: r = -0.047 (n = 271)lag +0: r = -0.111 (n = 290)lag +1: r = -0.199 (n = 277)lag +2: r = -0.164 (n = 292)lag +3: r = -0.116 (n = 260)lag +4: r = -0.172 (n = 236)lag +5: r = -0.148 (n = 246)lag +6: r = -0.071 (n = 248)

Same year (lag 0): -0.111. 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 (-0.20 at lag +1) is higher than the same-year one by 0.09. That gap is not a finding. It is the largest of 15 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


PISA points
% of 15 to 24 year olds		Years
Singapore SGP5756.46%2022, 2025
Macao SAR, China MAC5524.96%2022, 2016
Hong Kong SAR, China HKG5405.95%2022, 2025
Japan JPN5363.14%2022, 2019
Estonia EST51010.2%2022, 2024
Switzerland CHE5086.99%2022, 2025
Canada CAN49713.3%2022, 2025
Netherlands NLD4934.14%2022, 2024
Ireland IRL4925.67%2022, 2024
Belgium BEL4898.15%2022, 2024
Denmark DNK4896.9%2022, 2024
United Kingdom GBR48914.4%2022, 2025
Poland POL48910.1%2022, 2025
Russian Federation RUS4886.68%2018, 2025
Austria AUT48713.4%2022, 2025

OECD databases as named on each indicator: PISA, Social Expenditure Database (SOCX), Income Distribution Database, Development Assistance Committee statistics, Family Database, Government at a Glance, Corporate Tax Statistics, employment and environment statistics
World Bank, World Development Indicators

Sources

PISA maths

PISA mean mathematics score

OECD · via Our World in Data · CC BY 4.0 (OECD terms and conditions) · updated annual, except the snapshots noted per indicator

The average score of 15-year-olds on the same test in every country taking part. It is scaled so the OECD average in the starting year was 500, with a standard deviation (a typical gap between students) of 100. Held every three years. The 2021 round was held in 2022, and the OECD says it can still be compared with earlier rounds despite the pandemic. The three subjects are treated as measuring the same thing. Their links with each other are above 0.95, and that close match is a fact about the test, not about schooling.

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 2014–2025. 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 5 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 PISA maths and Youth not in work or study

This page shows that two measures go together. It does not show that PISA maths 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 PISA maths or Youth not in work or study