Countries with higher egalitarian democracy scores also tend to grant women stronger civil liberties.
Comparing Egalitarian Democracy Index with Women's Civil Liberties Index across 173 countries, 1948–2025.
- Rank correlation
- +0.91
- Holding size constant
- +0.88
- Countries compared
- 173
- Period
- 1948–2025
What might link these
Egalitarian democracies emphasize equal political rights and inclusion, which often extends to legal protections for women's freedoms. A likely confounder is the broader level of liberal cultural norms or historical trajectories that simultaneously promote democratic equality and women's rights.
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 correlation may reflect unmeasured cultural or historical factors rather than a direct democratic effect on women's liberties.
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.