Higher male tertiary education enrolment linked to larger primary income payments
Comparing Primary income payments (BoP, current US$) with Enrolment in tertiary education, all programmes, male (number), gaps filled across 149 countries, 2016–2025.
- Rank correlation
- +0.67
- Holding size constant
- +0.46
- Countries compared
- 149
- Period
- 2016–2025
What might link these
Wealthier or more developed countries may invest more in education and receive higher income payments, but the link could also reflect reverse causality or omitted factors like institutional quality. A careful reader should avoid assuming education directly causes higher payments.
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 partial correlation remains strong but could still be influenced by unmeasured confounders like technological advancement or policy frameworks.
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.