Higher GDP-adjusted population links to worse human rights scores
Comparing Key features of human rights with Population - Est. & Proj. — Total Population - Both sexes, per unit of GDP across 150 countries, 2025–2025.
- Rank correlation
- -0.59
- Holding size constant
- -0.43
- Countries compared
- 150
- Period
- 2025–2025
What might link these
Denser populations or resource constraints per GDP may strain institutions, but the link could reflect unmeasured factors like governance quality. A careful reader should note that correlation does not imply causation.
Why this is not proof of anything
This is a correlation across countries, not an experiment. It cannot show that either indicator causes the other, and both may simply follow a third thing. The relationship could be driven by unmeasured confounders like political stability or historical factors.
The second figure above repeats the measurement with national population and income held constant. It is the more conservative number: a relationship that largely disappears there was mostly telling you that larger, richer countries have more of most things.
How this was measured
Both indicators were ranked across every country reporting each, and the two rankings compared — ranks rather than raw values, because a handful of very large countries can otherwise manufacture a relationship on their own. The calculation is arithmetic over figures already published on this site; the commentary above is drafted from the two indicator names and the resulting coefficients.