placestats

Women in parliament vs. Youth not in work or study

Holds up after adjusting for income

Across 167 countries, Women in parliament and Youth not in work or study rise and fall together at r = -0.23 (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 = -0.11, q = 0.037, allowing for the many pairs tested).

Comparing countries across the middle half of women in parliament, 16.1% to 35% of seats, youth not in work or study is better by 3.91% 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 1.69% of 15 to 24 year olds.

Link before adjusting (r)-0.231p = 0.003 · 167 countries
After adjusting for national income-0.114p = 0.142 · likely range [-0.26, +0.04]
p, allowing for regions0.003standard error 0.024 · 7 regions
Check for luck (q)0.037across 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.

Women in parliament · % of seatslink with income +0.28 · independent
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

Women in parliament · % of seats →Youth not in work or study · % of 15 to 24 year olds →0%63.8%3.14%65.7%Afghanistan: 27% of seats, 43.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsAngola: 39.1% of seats, 24.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsAlbania: 35% of seats, 21% of 15 to 24 year oldsUnited Arab Emirates: 50% of seats, 8.92% of 15 to 24 year oldsArgentina: 41.2% of seats, 15.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsArmenia: 38.3% of seats, 20.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsAntigua and Barbuda: 5.56% of seats, 20.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsAustralia: 46% of seats, 8.53% of 15 to 24 year oldsAustria: 35.5% of seats, 13.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsAzerbaijan: 20.8% of seats, 9.64% of 15 to 24 year oldsBurundi: 39.6% of seats, 11.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsBelgium: 41.3% of seats, 8.15% of 15 to 24 year oldsBenin: 26.6% of seats, 14.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsBurkina Faso: 18.3% of seats, 24.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsBangladesh: 20.9% of seats, 15.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsBulgaria: 25% of seats, 10.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsBosnia and Herzegovina: 19% of seats, 14.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsBelarus: 33.9% of seats, 65.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsBelize: 12.5% of seats, 24.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsBolivia: 50.8% of seats, 8.02% of 15 to 24 year oldsBrazil: 18.1% of seats, 18.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsBarbados: 26.7% of seats, 29% of 15 to 24 year oldsBrunei Darussalam: 11.4% of seats, 19% of 15 to 24 year oldsBhutan: 4.26% of seats, 15.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsBotswana: 8.96% of seats, 38% of 15 to 24 year oldsCanada: 30.3% of seats, 13.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsSwitzerland: 39% of seats, 6.99% of 15 to 24 year oldsChile: 33.5% of seats, 13.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsCote d'Ivoire: 13.4% of seats, 18.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsCameroon: 33.9% of seats, 23.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsCongo, Dem. Rep.: 12.8% of seats, 31.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsColombia: 29.4% of seats, 22% of 15 to 24 year oldsComoros: 18.2% of seats, 21.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsCabo Verde: 44.4% of seats, 28% of 15 to 24 year oldsCosta Rica: 49.1% of seats, 19.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsCyprus: 14.3% of seats, 13.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsCzechia: 33.5% of seats, 4.62% of 15 to 24 year oldsGermany: 32.4% of seats, 7.58% of 15 to 24 year oldsDjibouti: 26.2% of seats, 44% of 15 to 24 year oldsDenmark: 43.6% of seats, 6.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsDominican Republic: 37.4% of seats, 24.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsAlgeria: 7.86% of seats, 20.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsEcuador: 45% of seats, 17.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsEgypt, Arab Rep.: 26.8% of seats, 23.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsSpain: 44.3% of seats, 10.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsEstonia: 28.7% of seats, 10.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsEthiopia: 41.9% of seats, 17.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsFinland: 45.5% of seats, 8.28% of 15 to 24 year oldsFiji: 9.09% of seats, 20.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsFrance: 36.2% of seats, 12.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsMicronesia, Fed. Sts.: 21.4% of seats, 28.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsGabon: 21.6% of seats, 20.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsUnited Kingdom: 40.5% of seats, 14.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsGeorgia: 16.8% of seats, 14.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsGhana: 14.5% of seats, 23.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsGuinea: 29.6% of seats, 34.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsGambia, The: 8.62% of seats, 36.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsGuinea-Bissau: 9.8% of seats, 13.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsGreece: 22.9% of seats, 10.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsGrenada: 31.3% of seats, 20.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsGuatemala: 20% of seats, 24% of 15 to 24 year oldsGuyana: 36.1% of seats, 44.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsHonduras: 29.7% of seats, 29% of 15 to 24 year oldsCroatia: 33.1% of seats, 8.08% of 15 to 24 year oldsHaiti: 2.54% of seats, 21.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsHungary: 15.6% of seats, 9.98% of 15 to 24 year oldsIndonesia: 21.9% of seats, 21.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsIndia: 13.8% of seats, 25.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsIreland: 25.3% of seats, 5.67% of 15 to 24 year oldsIran, Islamic Rep.: 4.91% of seats, 24.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsIraq: 25.5% of seats, 36.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsIceland: 46% of seats, 3.98% of 15 to 24 year oldsIsrael: 24.2% of seats, 15.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsItaly: 32.8% of seats, 12% of 15 to 24 year oldsJamaica: 30.2% of seats, 19.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsJordan: 19.6% of seats, 29.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsJapan: 15.7% of seats, 3.14% of 15 to 24 year oldsKazakhstan: 18.4% of seats, 9.49% of 15 to 24 year oldsKenya: 23.4% of seats, 18.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsKyrgyz Republic: 33.3% of seats, 19.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsCambodia: 13.6% of seats, 6.32% of 15 to 24 year oldsKiribati: 11.1% of seats, 35.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsLao PDR: 22% of seats, 22.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsLebanon: 6.25% of seats, 23.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsLiberia: 11% of seats, 39.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsSt. Lucia: 10.5% of seats, 25.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsSri Lanka: 9.78% of seats, 17.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsLesotho: 25% of seats, 38% of 15 to 24 year oldsLithuania: 28.4% of seats, 14.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsLuxembourg: 35% of seats, 10.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsLatvia: 31% of seats, 9.89% of 15 to 24 year oldsMorocco: 24.3% of seats, 35.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsMoldova: 39.6% of seats, 9.05% of 15 to 24 year oldsMadagascar: 14.1% of seats, 24.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsMaldives: 3.23% of seats, 26.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsMexico: 50.2% of seats, 16.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsMarshall Islands: 12.1% of seats, 40% of 15 to 24 year oldsNorth Macedonia: 39.2% of seats, 19.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsMali: 30.1% of seats, 30.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsMalta: 29.1% of seats, 7.84% of 15 to 24 year oldsMyanmar: 15.3% of seats, 15% of 15 to 24 year oldsMontenegro: 27.2% of seats, 14.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsMongolia: 25.4% of seats, 9.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsMozambique: 38.3% of seats, 19.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsMauritania: 23.3% of seats, 44.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsMauritius: 17.9% of seats, 13.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsMalawi: 21.4% of seats, 39.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsMalaysia: 13.5% of seats, 10.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsNamibia: 42.3% of seats, 31.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsNiger: 19.6% of seats, 15.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsNigeria: 4.21% of seats, 11.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsNicaragua: 54.9% of seats, 24.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsNetherlands: 43.3% of seats, 4.14% of 15 to 24 year oldsNorway: 40.2% of seats, 5.82% of 15 to 24 year oldsNepal: 33.1% of seats, 34.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsNaoero: 10.5% of seats, 50.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsNew Zealand: 45.5% of seats, 12.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsOman: 0% of seats, 25.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsPakistan: 17% of seats, 28.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsPanama: 21.7% of seats, 15.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsPeru: 41.5% of seats, 22.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsPhilippines: 28.3% of seats, 12.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsPalau: 25% of seats, 11.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsPapua New Guinea: 2.7% of seats, 27.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsPoland: 31.3% of seats, 10.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsPortugal: 35.7% of seats, 7.02% of 15 to 24 year oldsParaguay: 23.8% of seats, 18.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsRomania: 22.4% of seats, 17% of 15 to 24 year oldsRussian Federation: 16.4% of seats, 6.68% of 15 to 24 year oldsRwanda: 63.8% of seats, 15.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsSaudi Arabia: 19.9% of seats, 16.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsSudan: 30.5% of seats, 46.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsSenegal: 41.2% of seats, 35.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsSingapore: 32.3% of seats, 6.46% of 15 to 24 year oldsSolomon Islands: 6% of seats, 7.04% of 15 to 24 year oldsSierra Leone: 29.5% of seats, 25.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsEl Salvador: 31.7% of seats, 20.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsSomalia, Fed. Rep.: 19% of seats, 51% of 15 to 24 year oldsSerbia: 37.2% of seats, 12.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsSao Tome and Principe: 14.5% of seats, 43.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsSuriname: 31.4% of seats, 18.2% of 15 to 24 year oldsSlovak Republic: 23.3% of seats, 8.75% of 15 to 24 year oldsSlovenia: 35.6% of seats, 7.13% of 15 to 24 year oldsSweden: 45% of seats, 5.58% of 15 to 24 year oldsEswatini: 21.6% of seats, 36.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsSeychelles: 26.5% of seats, 16.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsChad: 33.5% of seats, 42.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsTogo: 15% of seats, 13% of 15 to 24 year oldsThailand: 19.6% of seats, 12.4% of 15 to 24 year oldsTajikistan: 28.6% of seats, 41.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsTimor-Leste: 35.4% of seats, 29.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsTonga: 3.85% of seats, 25.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsTrinidad and Tobago: 23.8% of seats, 15.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsTunisia: 15.8% of seats, 22.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsTurkiye: 19.9% of seats, 22.9% of 15 to 24 year oldsTuvalu: 0% of seats, 34.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsTanzania: 39.5% of seats, 12.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsUganda: 34.1% of seats, 13.8% of 15 to 24 year oldsUkraine: 21.2% of seats, 16.5% of 15 to 24 year oldsUruguay: 31.3% of seats, 14% of 15 to 24 year oldsUnited States: 28.9% of seats, 11.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsViet Nam: 31.4% of seats, 10.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsVanuatu: 1.92% of seats, 29.3% of 15 to 24 year oldsSamoa: 9.8% of seats, 30.1% of 15 to 24 year oldsSouth Africa: 44.9% of seats, 34.6% of 15 to 24 year oldsZambia: 15% of seats, 26.7% of 15 to 24 year oldsZimbabwe: 30.1% of seats, 36% of 15 to 24 year oldsBLRBOLGUYISLJPNNGANRURWASLBTUVZAF

best-fit line line after adjusting

Four ways to measure the link

MethodrpCountries
Standard (Pearson), not adjusted-0.2310.003167
By rank (Spearman), not adjusted-0.2870.000167
Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income-0.1140.142167
By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income-0.1390.075167

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 167 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: +0.116 (a minus sign means it grew).

How solid is it?

Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from -0.141 (without BLR) to -0.091 (without RWA). 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 (-0.027).

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 & Pacific27-0.25
Europe & Central Asia46+0.03
Latin America & Caribbean27-0.17
Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan16+0.03
Sub-Saharan Africa43-0.10

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 third56-0.04
Middle third55-0.19
Richest third56-0.09

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
Christians103-0.17
Muslims41+0.18

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+0.41
Never a European colony17-0.37
Spain19-0.30
United Kingdom55-0.01

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 = -0.097 after dropping 4 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 29years. 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 = -0.044, 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 women in parliament moved did not tend to see their youth not in work or study move with it.

Across countries (adjusted)-0.114for comparison
Within countries-0.240each country vs itself
…and vs the same year elsewhere-0.044q = 0.506 · 117 countries
Year-on-year changes-0.049q = 0.148

2,056 country-years (one country in one year), 117 countries, 1997–2025, about 18 years each on average. Share of the variation that happens within countries over time: 27% for Women in parliament, 22% 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 Women in parliament →lag -10: r = 0.062 (n = 1,249)lag -9: r = 0.079 (n = 1,352)lag -8: r = 0.045 (n = 1,442)lag -7: r = 0.053 (n = 1,523)lag -6: r = 0.046 (n = 1,607)lag -5: r = 0.027 (n = 1,699)lag -4: r = 0.004 (n = 1,782)lag -3: r = -0.016 (n = 1,885)lag -2: r = -0.017 (n = 1,969)lag -1: r = -0.028 (n = 2,038)lag +0: r = -0.044 (n = 2,056)lag +1: r = -0.022 (n = 2,022)lag +2: r = -0.020 (n = 1,999)lag +3: r = -0.022 (n = 1,955)lag +4: r = -0.001 (n = 1,904)lag +5: r = -0.004 (n = 1,853)lag +6: r = -0.008 (n = 1,798)lag +7: r = -0.012 (n = 1,737)lag +8: r = -0.006 (n = 1,685)lag +9: r = -0.022 (n = 1,606)lag +10: r = -0.017 (n = 1,532)

Same year (lag 0): -0.044. 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


% of seats
% of 15 to 24 year olds		Years
Rwanda RWA63.8%15.3%2025
Nicaragua NIC54.9%24.5%2025, 2014
Bolivia BOL50.8%8.02%2025, 2024
Mexico MEX50.2%16.2%2025
United Arab Emirates ARE50%8.92%2025, 2023
Costa Rica CRI49.1%19.4%2025
Iceland ISL46%3.98%2025, 2024
Australia AUS46%8.53%2025, 2024
New Zealand NZL45.5%12.8%2025, 2024
Finland FIN45.5%8.28%2025, 2024
Ecuador ECU45%17.7%2025
Sweden SWE45%5.58%2025, 2024
South Africa ZAF44.9%34.6%2025, 2024
Cabo Verde CPV44.4%28%2025, 2019
Spain ESP44.3%10.5%2025

World Bank, World Development Indicators
World Bank, World Development Indicators

Sources

Women in parliament

Proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments (%)

Inter-Parliamentary Union · CC BY 4.0 · updated quarterly

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 Women in parliament and Youth not in work or study

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