placestats

Price level vs. Unintended pregnancies ending in abortion

Holds up after adjusting for income

Across 135 countries, Price level and Unintended pregnancies ending in abortion rise and fall together at r = -0.27 (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 = -0.48, q = 0.031, allowing for the many pairs tested). Caution: direction is not consistent across regions.

Comparing countries across the middle half of unintended pregnancies ending in abortion, 31.2% to 58.3% of unintended pregnancies, price level is 0.105 ratio to the US lower at the top of that range than the bottom. Comparing only countries with similar national income, the gap is 0.14 ratio to the US.

Link before adjusting (r)-0.274p = 0.001 · 135 countries
After adjusting for national income-0.477p = 5.7e-9 · likely range [-0.60, -0.33]
p, allowing for regions0.055standard error 0.200 · 7 regions
Check for luck (q)0.031across 18,622 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.

Price level · ratio to the US (US = 1)link with income +0.72 · high
Unintended pregnancies ending in abortion · % of unintended pregnancieslink with income +0.12 · independent

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

Every country as a dot

Price level · ratio to the US (US = 1) →Unintended pregnancies ending in abortion · % of unintended pregnancies →0.1771.4119.7%86.1%Angola: 0.385 ratio to the US (US = 1), 28.1% of unintended pregnanciesAlbania: 0.514 ratio to the US (US = 1), 59.2% of unintended pregnanciesArgentina: 0.506 ratio to the US (US = 1), 48.4% of unintended pregnanciesArmenia: 0.41 ratio to the US (US = 1), 81.8% of unintended pregnanciesAustralia: 1.01 ratio to the US (US = 1), 43.1% of unintended pregnanciesAzerbaijan: 0.319 ratio to the US (US = 1), 77.6% of unintended pregnanciesBurundi: 0.308 ratio to the US (US = 1), 26.2% of unintended pregnanciesBelgium: 0.893 ratio to the US (US = 1), 37.1% of unintended pregnanciesBenin: 0.33 ratio to the US (US = 1), 36.9% of unintended pregnanciesBurkina Faso: 0.315 ratio to the US (US = 1), 40.6% of unintended pregnanciesBangladesh: 0.289 ratio to the US (US = 1), 60.1% of unintended pregnanciesBulgaria: 0.496 ratio to the US (US = 1), 35.7% of unintended pregnanciesBosnia and Herzegovina: 0.447 ratio to the US (US = 1), 57.3% of unintended pregnanciesBelarus: 0.271 ratio to the US (US = 1), 56% of unintended pregnanciesBelize: 0.575 ratio to the US (US = 1), 45.2% of unintended pregnanciesBolivia: 0.336 ratio to the US (US = 1), 36.3% of unintended pregnanciesBrazil: 0.517 ratio to the US (US = 1), 48.4% of unintended pregnanciesBarbados: 1.41 ratio to the US (US = 1), 58% of unintended pregnanciesBhutan: 0.283 ratio to the US (US = 1), 67.9% of unintended pregnanciesBotswana: 0.397 ratio to the US (US = 1), 32.2% of unintended pregnanciesCentral African Republic: 0.482 ratio to the US (US = 1), 30% of unintended pregnanciesCanada: 0.924 ratio to the US (US = 1), 36.8% of unintended pregnanciesSwitzerland: 1.32 ratio to the US (US = 1), 25.5% of unintended pregnanciesChile: 0.63 ratio to the US (US = 1), 52.5% of unintended pregnanciesChina: 0.526 ratio to the US (US = 1), 77.9% of unintended pregnanciesCote d'Ivoire: 0.402 ratio to the US (US = 1), 36.7% of unintended pregnanciesCameroon: 0.336 ratio to the US (US = 1), 40.7% of unintended pregnanciesCongo, Dem. Rep.: 0.499 ratio to the US (US = 1), 27.9% of unintended pregnanciesCongo, Rep.: 0.363 ratio to the US (US = 1), 42.6% of unintended pregnanciesColombia: 0.41 ratio to the US (US = 1), 43.2% of unintended pregnanciesComoros: 0.468 ratio to the US (US = 1), 32.4% of unintended pregnanciesCabo Verde: 0.528 ratio to the US (US = 1), 48.6% of unintended pregnanciesCosta Rica: 0.691 ratio to the US (US = 1), 41% of unintended pregnanciesCzechia: 0.701 ratio to the US (US = 1), 19.7% of unintended pregnanciesGermany: 0.839 ratio to the US (US = 1), 27.1% of unintended pregnanciesDjibouti: 0.488 ratio to the US (US = 1), 41.4% of unintended pregnanciesDenmark: 1.05 ratio to the US (US = 1), 38.9% of unintended pregnanciesDominican Republic: 0.426 ratio to the US (US = 1), 44% of unintended pregnanciesEcuador: 0.455 ratio to the US (US = 1), 35.1% of unintended pregnanciesSpain: 0.748 ratio to the US (US = 1), 43.1% of unintended pregnanciesEstonia: 0.77 ratio to the US (US = 1), 41.7% of unintended pregnanciesEthiopia: 0.367 ratio to the US (US = 1), 31% of unintended pregnanciesFinland: 0.968 ratio to the US (US = 1), 24.8% of unintended pregnanciesFrance: 0.847 ratio to the US (US = 1), 49.5% of unintended pregnanciesGabon: 0.489 ratio to the US (US = 1), 36.8% of unintended pregnanciesUnited Kingdom: 0.948 ratio to the US (US = 1), 36.2% of unintended pregnanciesGeorgia: 0.416 ratio to the US (US = 1), 86.1% of unintended pregnanciesGhana: 0.348 ratio to the US (US = 1), 35.9% of unintended pregnanciesGuinea: 0.412 ratio to the US (US = 1), 38.1% of unintended pregnanciesGambia, The: 0.317 ratio to the US (US = 1), 31.1% of unintended pregnanciesGuinea-Bissau: 0.394 ratio to the US (US = 1), 58.5% of unintended pregnanciesGreece: 0.68 ratio to the US (US = 1), 45.8% of unintended pregnanciesGuatemala: 0.463 ratio to the US (US = 1), 30.1% of unintended pregnanciesGuyana: 0.422 ratio to the US (US = 1), 47.5% of unintended pregnanciesHong Kong SAR, China: 0.801 ratio to the US (US = 1), 46.1% of unintended pregnanciesHonduras: 0.505 ratio to the US (US = 1), 30.6% of unintended pregnanciesCroatia: 0.621 ratio to the US (US = 1), 49.9% of unintended pregnanciesHaiti: 0.592 ratio to the US (US = 1), 35.5% of unintended pregnanciesHungary: 0.592 ratio to the US (US = 1), 49.4% of unintended pregnanciesIndonesia: 0.352 ratio to the US (US = 1), 63% of unintended pregnanciesIndia: 0.238 ratio to the US (US = 1), 77.1% of unintended pregnanciesIceland: 1.22 ratio to the US (US = 1), 39.1% of unintended pregnanciesItaly: 0.774 ratio to the US (US = 1), 67.1% of unintended pregnanciesJamaica: 0.623 ratio to the US (US = 1), 43.9% of unintended pregnanciesJapan: 0.793 ratio to the US (US = 1), 30.1% of unintended pregnanciesKazakhstan: 0.361 ratio to the US (US = 1), 82.1% of unintended pregnanciesKenya: 0.316 ratio to the US (US = 1), 38% of unintended pregnanciesKyrgyz Republic: 0.294 ratio to the US (US = 1), 79.2% of unintended pregnanciesCambodia: 0.42 ratio to the US (US = 1), 65.3% of unintended pregnanciesKorea, Rep.: 0.728 ratio to the US (US = 1), 61.9% of unintended pregnanciesLao PDR: 0.224 ratio to the US (US = 1), 68.3% of unintended pregnanciesLiberia: 0.542 ratio to the US (US = 1), 40.4% of unintended pregnanciesSt. Lucia: 0.579 ratio to the US (US = 1), 54.6% of unintended pregnanciesSri Lanka: 0.283 ratio to the US (US = 1), 72.3% of unintended pregnanciesLesotho: 0.33 ratio to the US (US = 1), 23.9% of unintended pregnanciesLithuania: 0.618 ratio to the US (US = 1), 27.7% of unintended pregnanciesLatvia: 0.672 ratio to the US (US = 1), 30.2% of unintended pregnanciesMoldova: 0.416 ratio to the US (US = 1), 70.6% of unintended pregnanciesMadagascar: 0.269 ratio to the US (US = 1), 62.8% of unintended pregnanciesMaldives: 0.662 ratio to the US (US = 1), 70.5% of unintended pregnanciesMexico: 0.622 ratio to the US (US = 1), 50.9% of unintended pregnanciesNorth Macedonia: 0.386 ratio to the US (US = 1), 63.4% of unintended pregnanciesMali: 0.294 ratio to the US (US = 1), 33.5% of unintended pregnanciesMyanmar: 0.177 ratio to the US (US = 1), 74.2% of unintended pregnanciesMontenegro: 0.496 ratio to the US (US = 1), 54.2% of unintended pregnanciesMongolia: 0.325 ratio to the US (US = 1), 65.7% of unintended pregnanciesMozambique: 0.413 ratio to the US (US = 1), 46.7% of unintended pregnanciesMauritania: 0.345 ratio to the US (US = 1), 25.4% of unintended pregnanciesMalawi: 0.321 ratio to the US (US = 1), 27.4% of unintended pregnanciesNamibia: 0.365 ratio to the US (US = 1), 27.9% of unintended pregnanciesNiger: 0.292 ratio to the US (US = 1), 31.3% of unintended pregnanciesNigeria: 0.34 ratio to the US (US = 1), 48.2% of unintended pregnanciesNicaragua: 0.377 ratio to the US (US = 1), 27.5% of unintended pregnanciesNetherlands: 0.888 ratio to the US (US = 1), 40.8% of unintended pregnanciesNorway: 0.971 ratio to the US (US = 1), 31.7% of unintended pregnanciesNepal: 0.275 ratio to the US (US = 1), 69.4% of unintended pregnanciesNew Zealand: 0.957 ratio to the US (US = 1), 29.3% of unintended pregnanciesPakistan: 0.188 ratio to the US (US = 1), 60.9% of unintended pregnanciesPanama: 0.546 ratio to the US (US = 1), 41.3% of unintended pregnanciesPeru: 0.546 ratio to the US (US = 1), 47.5% of unintended pregnanciesPhilippines: 0.374 ratio to the US (US = 1), 50.5% of unintended pregnanciesPoland: 0.507 ratio to the US (US = 1), 36.6% of unintended pregnanciesPortugal: 0.702 ratio to the US (US = 1), 32.4% of unintended pregnanciesParaguay: 0.398 ratio to the US (US = 1), 51% of unintended pregnanciesRomania: 0.495 ratio to the US (US = 1), 71.2% of unintended pregnanciesRussian Federation: 0.337 ratio to the US (US = 1), 71.8% of unintended pregnanciesRwanda: 0.3 ratio to the US (US = 1), 28.7% of unintended pregnanciesSenegal: 0.39 ratio to the US (US = 1), 25.1% of unintended pregnanciesSingapore: 0.798 ratio to the US (US = 1), 27.5% of unintended pregnanciesSierra Leone: 0.241 ratio to the US (US = 1), 51.5% of unintended pregnanciesEl Salvador: 0.49 ratio to the US (US = 1), 41.5% of unintended pregnanciesSomalia, Fed. Rep.: 0.403 ratio to the US (US = 1), 29.2% of unintended pregnanciesSerbia: 0.527 ratio to the US (US = 1), 60.8% of unintended pregnanciesSao Tome and Principe: 0.527 ratio to the US (US = 1), 29.6% of unintended pregnanciesSuriname: 0.316 ratio to the US (US = 1), 46.5% of unintended pregnanciesSlovak Republic: 0.703 ratio to the US (US = 1), 26.2% of unintended pregnanciesSlovenia: 0.706 ratio to the US (US = 1), 24.4% of unintended pregnanciesSweden: 0.874 ratio to the US (US = 1), 48.3% of unintended pregnanciesEswatini: 0.363 ratio to the US (US = 1), 26.5% of unintended pregnanciesChad: 0.363 ratio to the US (US = 1), 29.5% of unintended pregnanciesTogo: 0.362 ratio to the US (US = 1), 32.2% of unintended pregnanciesThailand: 0.292 ratio to the US (US = 1), 64.4% of unintended pregnanciesTajikistan: 0.291 ratio to the US (US = 1), 71% of unintended pregnanciesTurkmenistan: 0.561 ratio to the US (US = 1), 83.4% of unintended pregnanciesTrinidad and Tobago: 0.59 ratio to the US (US = 1), 58% of unintended pregnanciesTanzania: 0.282 ratio to the US (US = 1), 35.9% of unintended pregnanciesUganda: 0.343 ratio to the US (US = 1), 29.7% of unintended pregnanciesUkraine: 0.302 ratio to the US (US = 1), 75.9% of unintended pregnanciesUruguay: 0.777 ratio to the US (US = 1), 27.6% of unintended pregnanciesUnited States: 1 ratio to the US (US = 1), 34.2% of unintended pregnanciesUzbekistan: 0.269 ratio to the US (US = 1), 80.2% of unintended pregnanciesViet Nam: 0.299 ratio to the US (US = 1), 74.5% of unintended pregnanciesSouth Africa: 0.425 ratio to the US (US = 1), 36.6% of unintended pregnanciesZambia: 0.319 ratio to the US (US = 1), 28.2% of unintended pregnanciesZimbabwe: 0.69 ratio to the US (US = 1), 24.8% of unintended pregnanciesBDIBRBCHEFININDISLLSOMMRMRTTKMUZB

best-fit line line after adjusting

Four ways to measure the link

MethodrpCountries
Standard (Pearson), not adjusted-0.2740.001135
By rank (Spearman), not adjusted-0.2580.003135
Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income-0.4775.7e-9135
By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income-0.4775.8e-9135

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 135 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: -0.203 (a minus sign means it grew).

How solid is it?

Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from -0.547 (without BRB) to -0.464 (without CHE). 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: BRB (-0.070).

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 & Pacific15-0.49
Europe & Central Asia43-0.35
Latin America & Caribbean25+0.30
Sub-Saharan Africa42-0.14

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 third45-0.41
Middle third45-0.27
Richest third45-0.43

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
Christians89-0.33
Muslims27-0.36

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
France21-0.41
Never a European colony16-0.65
Spain17-0.36
United Kingdom34-0.31

By official ideology

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
Nationalist21-0.65
No strong official ideology97-0.48

By party system

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
A few parties banned21-0.34
No parties banned101-0.43

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 = -0.547 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.

Loading…

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


ratio to the US (US = 1)
% of unintended pregnancies		Years
Barbados BRB1.4158%2023, 2019
Switzerland CHE1.3225.5%2023, 2019
Iceland ISL1.2239.1%2023, 2019
Denmark DNK1.0538.9%2023, 2019
Australia AUS1.0143.1%2023, 2019
United States USA134.2%2023, 2019
Norway NOR0.97131.7%2023, 2019
Finland FIN0.96824.8%2023, 2019
New Zealand NZL0.95729.3%2023, 2019
United Kingdom GBR0.94836.2%2023, 2019
Canada CAN0.92436.8%2023, 2019
Belgium BEL0.89337.1%2023, 2019
Netherlands NLD0.88840.8%2023, 2019
Sweden SWE0.87448.3%2023, 2019
France FRA0.84749.5%2023, 2019

Feenstra, Robert C., Robert Inklaar and Marcel P. Timmer (2015), "The Next Generation of the Penn World Table", American Economic Review, 105(10), 3150-3182, www.ggdc.net/pwt. Data: Penn World Table version 11.0, Groningen Growth and Development Centre, doi:10.34894/FABVLR.
Bearak, J. M., Popinchalk, A., Beavin, C. et al. (2022), 'Country-specific estimates of unintended pregnancy and abortion incidence: a global comparative analysis of levels in 2015-2019', BMJ Global Health 7(3), e007151. Guttmacher Institute. Supplementary appendix, tables A3-A5.

Sources

Price level

Price level of household consumption, compared with the US (Penn World Table)

Groningen Growth and Development Centre, University of Groningen · via DataverseNL · CC BY 4.0 · updated irregular (new versions every few years)

How expensive the things households buy are in a country, compared with the US in the same year, when money is changed at the market exchange rate. A value of 0.5 means a typical basket of goods and services costs about half what it would in the US. Richer countries tend to be more expensive. It comes from the same price comparisons used to adjust GDP for what money buys, so it shares a building block with GDP per capita (PPP). Years in which the Penn World Table flags the price comparison as unreliable are left out. No "better" direction is set.

Unintended pregnancies ending in abortion

Share of unintended pregnancies ending in abortion (model estimate, 2015-2019)

Guttmacher Institute (Bearak et al. 2022, BMJ Global Health) · CC BY-NC 4.0 · updated one edition (2015-2019 estimates, published 2022)

Of the unintended pregnancies in the abortion rate's model, the share that ended in abortion, averaged over 2015-2019 (Guttmacher Institute). The rest ended in a birth or a miscarriage. Like the other two, it is an estimate with a range. No "better" direction is set.

How this was computed

Data used: most recent value in 2010-2025; values come from 2019–2023. 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 18,622 pairs at once, using the Benjamini–Hochberg method. Underlying data last updated V-Dem v16; V-Party v2. How the country data works · explore Price level and Unintended pregnancies ending in abortion

This page shows that two measures go together. It does not show that Price level changes Unintended pregnancies ending in abortion, or the reverse. These figures also describe countries, not individual people. See the ecological fallacy.

More links with Price level or Unintended pregnancies ending in abortion