Higher civil society participation links to greater women's political empowerment
Comparing Civil society participation index with Women political empowerment index across 173 countries, 1948–2025.
- Rank correlation
- +0.74
- Holding size constant
- +0.72
- Countries compared
- 173
- Period
- 1948–2025
What might link these
Wealthier or more developed countries may foster both civic engagement and gender equality, but the link could also reflect cultural or institutional norms. A careful reader should avoid assuming one causes the other.
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. Correlation alone doesn't prove causation, and unmeasured factors like historical gender policies may drive both trends.
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.