placestats

Religiously unaffiliated vs. Youth not in work or study

Holds up after adjusting for income

A country is not a person. Countries where more people are counted as belonging to this group also tend to differ on the other measure, and that is all. It does not follow that the people in the group are the people with the different score. Making that leap is called the ecological fallacy: reading a pattern across places as a fact about individual people. It is the most common misuse of this kind of data. Religion also varies strongly with region, history and national income, so much of what looks religious here is really those. That is what the adjusted figures are for. The religion shares are estimates for two years only, and the survey questions are asked in rounds that can be ten years apart.

Across 169 countries, Religiously unaffiliated and Youth not in work or study rise and fall together at r = -0.45 (on a scale from −1 to +1, where 0 means no link). Comparing only countries with similar income (GDP per person) shrinks it to -0.24 (q = 0.022, allowing for the many pairs tested). Much of the first figure is that both measures rise with national income, but a weak negative link remains.

Comparing countries across the middle half of religiously unaffiliated, 0.336% to 14.3% of population, youth not in work or study is better by 4.41% 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 2.24% of 15 to 24 year olds.

Link before adjusting (r)-0.446p = 1.2e-9 · 169 countries
After adjusting for national income-0.239p = 0.002 · likely range [-0.38, -0.09]
p, allowing for regions0.001standard error 0.041 · 7 regions
Check for luck (q)0.022across 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.

Religiously unaffiliated · % of populationlink with income +0.51 · moderate
Youth not in work or study · % of 15 to 24 year oldslink with income -0.63 · high

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

Every country as a dot

Religiously unaffiliated · % of population →Youth not in work or study · % of 15 to 24 year olds →0%72.8%3.14%65.7%Aruba: 5.87% of population, 16.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsAfghanistan: 0.00846% of population, 43.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsAngola: 6.11% of population, 24.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsAlbania: 7.65% of population, 21% of 15 to 24 year oldsUnited Arab Emirates: 0.336% of population, 8.92% of 15 to 24 year oldsArgentina: 9.23% of population, 15.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsArmenia: 1.18% of population, 20.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsAustralia: 42.3% of population, 8.53% of 15 to 24 year oldsAustria: 22.4% of population, 13.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsAzerbaijan: 4.76% of population, 9.64% of 15 to 24 year oldsBurundi: 1.25% of population, 11.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsBelgium: 39% of population, 8.15% of 15 to 24 year oldsBenin: 4.89% of population, 14.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsBurkina Faso: 0.576% of population, 24.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsBangladesh: 0% of population, 15.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsBulgaria: 10% of population, 10.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsBosnia and Herzegovina: 1.05% of population, 14.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsBelarus: 13.8% of population, 65.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsBelize: 15.6% of population, 24.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsBolivia: 9.55% of population, 8.02% of 15 to 24 year oldsBrazil: 13.5% of population, 18.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsBarbados: 20.1% of population, 29% of 15 to 24 year oldsBrunei Darussalam: 0.156% of population, 19% of 15 to 24 year oldsBhutan: 0.0437% of population, 15.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsBotswana: 14.7% of population, 38% of 15 to 24 year oldsCanada: 34.6% of population, 13.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsSwitzerland: 30.8% of population, 6.99% of 15 to 24 year oldsChile: 30.3% of population, 13.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsCote d'Ivoire: 5.56% of population, 18.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsCameroon: 2.08% of population, 23.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsCongo, Dem. Rep.: 1.18% of population, 31.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsColombia: 9.94% of population, 22% of 15 to 24 year oldsComoros: 0.13% of population, 21.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsCabo Verde: 20.6% of population, 28% of 15 to 24 year oldsCosta Rica: 10.1% of population, 19.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsCuracao: 5.93% of population, 17.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsCyprus: 6.57% of population, 13.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsCzechia: 72.8% of population, 4.62% of 15 to 24 year oldsGermany: 36.1% of population, 7.58% of 15 to 24 year oldsDjibouti: 1.1% of population, 44% of 15 to 24 year oldsDenmark: 16.6% of population, 6.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsDominican Republic: 19.6% of population, 24.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsAlgeria: 1.27% of population, 20.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsEcuador: 8.39% of population, 17.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsEgypt, Arab Rep.: 0.00465% of population, 23.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsSpain: 26.4% of population, 10.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsEstonia: 43.6% of population, 10.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsEthiopia: 0.0623% of population, 17.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsFinland: 25% of population, 8.28% of 15 to 24 year oldsFiji: 0.251% of population, 20.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsFrance: 42.6% of population, 12.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsMicronesia, Fed. Sts.: 0.685% of population, 28.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsGabon: 5.76% of population, 20.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsUnited Kingdom: 40.2% of population, 14.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsGeorgia: 0.988% of population, 14.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsGhana: 1.07% of population, 23.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsGuinea: 1.32% of population, 34.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsGambia, The: 0.0179% of population, 36.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsGuinea-Bissau: 11.6% of population, 13.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsGreece: 4.74% of population, 10.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsGrenada: 5.77% of population, 20.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsGuatemala: 6.02% of population, 24% of 15 to 24 year oldsGuyana: 2.91% of population, 44.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsHong Kong SAR, China: 71.4% of population, 5.95% of 15 to 24 year oldsHonduras: 9.74% of population, 29% of 15 to 24 year oldsCroatia: 6.66% of population, 8.08% of 15 to 24 year oldsHaiti: 9.43% of population, 21.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsHungary: 27% of population, 9.98% of 15 to 24 year oldsIndonesia: 0.092% of population, 21.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsIndia: 0.00326% of population, 25.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsIreland: 15.6% of population, 5.67% of 15 to 24 year oldsIran, Islamic Rep.: 0.00005% of population, 24.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsIraq: 0.000799% of population, 36.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsIceland: 19.8% of population, 3.98% of 15 to 24 year oldsIsrael: 4.37% of population, 15.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsItaly: 13.3% of population, 12% of 15 to 24 year oldsJamaica: 23.7% of population, 19.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsJordan: 0.0474% of population, 29.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsJapan: 57.5% of population, 3.14% of 15 to 24 year oldsKazakhstan: 2.53% of population, 9.49% of 15 to 24 year oldsKenya: 1.6% of population, 18.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsKyrgyz Republic: 1.17% of population, 19.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsCambodia: 0.079% of population, 6.32% of 15 to 24 year oldsKiribati: 0.1% of population, 35.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsLao PDR: 0.0528% of population, 22.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsLebanon: 0.0188% of population, 23.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsLiberia: 1.07% of population, 39.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsSt. Lucia: 5.9% of population, 25.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsSri Lanka: 0.0699% of population, 17.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsLesotho: 1.66% of population, 38% of 15 to 24 year oldsLithuania: 7.08% of population, 14.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsLuxembourg: 25.3% of population, 10.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsLatvia: 17% of population, 9.89% of 15 to 24 year oldsMacao SAR, China: 67.6% of population, 4.96% of 15 to 24 year oldsMorocco: 0.131% of population, 35.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsMoldova: 0.234% of population, 9.05% of 15 to 24 year oldsMadagascar: 22.3% of population, 24.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsMaldives: 0.068% of population, 26.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsMexico: 10.6% of population, 16.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsNorth Macedonia: 0.516% of population, 19.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsMali: 2.53% of population, 30.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsMalta: 5.24% of population, 7.84% of 15 to 24 year oldsMyanmar: 0.0586% of population, 15% of 15 to 24 year oldsMontenegro: 1.14% of population, 14.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsMongolia: 40.8% of population, 9.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsMozambique: 14.3% of population, 19.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsMauritania: 0.107% of population, 44.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsMauritius: 0.753% of population, 13.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsMalawi: 0.941% of population, 39.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsMalaysia: 0.845% of population, 10.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsNamibia: 5.63% of population, 31.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsNiger: 1.22% of population, 15.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsNigeria: 0.379% of population, 11.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsNicaragua: 13.3% of population, 24.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsNetherlands: 54.1% of population, 4.14% of 15 to 24 year oldsNorway: 22.5% of population, 5.82% of 15 to 24 year oldsNepal: 0.00129% of population, 34.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsNew Zealand: 51.4% of population, 12.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsOman: 0.14% of population, 25.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsPakistan: 0.0127% of population, 28.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsPanama: 6.21% of population, 15.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsPeru: 5.11% of population, 22.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsPhilippines: 0.0411% of population, 12.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsPapua New Guinea: 0.311% of population, 27.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsPoland: 8.65% of population, 10.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsPuerto Rico (US): 10.4% of population, 19.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsPortugal: 13.8% of population, 7.02% of 15 to 24 year oldsParaguay: 4.25% of population, 18.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsWest Bank and Gaza: 0% of population, 25.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsRomania: 0.94% of population, 17% of 15 to 24 year oldsRussian Federation: 20.2% of population, 6.68% of 15 to 24 year oldsRwanda: 1.01% of population, 15.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsSaudi Arabia: 0.112% of population, 16.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsSudan: 0.563% of population, 46.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsSenegal: 0.0207% of population, 35.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsSingapore: 19.9% of population, 6.46% of 15 to 24 year oldsSolomon Islands: 0.328% of population, 7.04% of 15 to 24 year oldsSierra Leone: 0.012% of population, 25.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsEl Salvador: 11.9% of population, 20.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsSomalia, Fed. Rep.: 0.0161% of population, 51% of 15 to 24 year oldsSerbia: 4.01% of population, 12.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsSao Tome and Principe: 9.69% of population, 43.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsSuriname: 8.11% of population, 18.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsSlovak Republic: 25.3% of population, 8.75% of 15 to 24 year oldsSlovenia: 32.3% of population, 7.13% of 15 to 24 year oldsSweden: 28.9% of population, 5.58% of 15 to 24 year oldsEswatini: 6.16% of population, 36.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsSeychelles: 2.36% of population, 16.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsChad: 3.13% of population, 42.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsTogo: 8.01% of population, 13% of 15 to 24 year oldsThailand: 0.0126% of population, 12.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsTajikistan: 0.0746% of population, 41.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsTimor-Leste: 0.0639% of population, 29.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsTonga: 0.581% of population, 25.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsTrinidad and Tobago: 2.45% of population, 15.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsTunisia: 0.441% of population, 22.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsTurkiye: 2.53% of population, 22.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsTanzania: 3.48% of population, 12.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsUganda: 0.0949% of population, 13.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsUkraine: 15.1% of population, 16.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsUruguay: 52.4% of population, 14% of 15 to 24 year oldsUnited States: 29.7% of population, 11.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsViet Nam: 67.7% of population, 10.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsVanuatu: 1.37% of population, 29.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsSamoa: 0.0642% of population, 30.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsKosovo: 0.139% of population, 30% of 15 to 24 year oldsSouth Africa: 3.12% of population, 34.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsZambia: 0.0598% of population, 26.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsZimbabwe: 10.5% of population, 36% of 15 to 24 year oldsAREBLRCZEHKGKHMMACSDNSLBSOMVNM

best-fit line line after adjusting

Four ways to measure the link

MethodrpCountries
Standard (Pearson), not adjusted-0.4461.2e-9169
By rank (Spearman), not adjusted-0.5042.8e-12169
Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income-0.2390.002169
By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income-0.2420.002169

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 169 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: +0.208 (a minus sign means it grew).

How solid is it?

Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from -0.258 (without BLR) to -0.218 (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: GUY (+0.021).

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 & Pacific25-0.34
Europe & Central Asia47-0.11
Latin America & Caribbean29-0.21
Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan17-0.19
Sub-Saharan Africa43-0.02

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 third57-0.13
Middle third56-0.09
Richest third56-0.43

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
Christians106-0.16
Muslims43-0.39

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
France22-0.32
Never a European colony17-0.44
Spain19-0.08
United Kingdom52-0.07

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 = -0.191 after dropping 18 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 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


% of population
% of 15 to 24 year olds		Years
Czechia CZE72.8%4.62%2020, 2024
Hong Kong SAR, China HKG71.4%5.95%2020, 2025
Viet Nam VNM67.7%10.3%2020, 2024
Macao SAR, China MAC67.6%4.96%2020, 2016
Japan JPN57.5%3.14%2020, 2019
Netherlands NLD54.1%4.14%2020, 2024
Uruguay URY52.4%14%2020, 2024
New Zealand NZL51.4%12.8%2020, 2024
Estonia EST43.6%10.2%2020, 2024
France FRA42.6%12.6%2020, 2024
Australia AUS42.3%8.53%2020, 2024
Mongolia MNG40.8%9.9%2020, 2024
United Kingdom GBR40.2%14.4%2020, 2025
Belgium BEL39%8.15%2020, 2024
Germany DEU36.1%7.58%2020, 2024

Pew Research Center, Religious Composition by Country, 2010-2020. Pew Research Center bears no responsibility for the analyses or interpretations of the data presented here.
World Bank, World Development Indicators
One of these measures is published under a licence that forbids changes. Values are shown exactly as published and must not be republished in a changed or rescaled form.

Sources

Religiously unaffiliated

Share of the population religiously unaffiliated

Pew Research Center · via Our World in Data · Pew Research Center terms of use, excerpts with attribution · updated decennial · comparable from 2010 only

People who belong to no religion: atheists, agnostics and those who say "nothing in particular". Pew estimated it from censuses and surveys for 2010 and 2020. Belonging is a third thing, beside the attendance and importance measures already here. A country can be almost all affiliated and rarely attend, as much of Europe is. With only two years, nothing here shows a trend. No "better" direction is set.

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 12,497 pairs at once, using the Benjamini–Hochberg method. Underlying data last updated DYB 2024. How the country data works · explore Religiously unaffiliated and Youth not in work or study

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