Higher gov spending links to fewer women per GDP
Comparing Population - Est. & Proj. — Total Population - Female, per unit of GDP with General government final consumption expenditure (current US$), per capita across 158 countries, 2011–2025.
- Rank correlation
- -0.97
- Holding size constant
- -0.94
- Countries compared
- 158
- Period
- 2011–2025
What might link these
The strong negative correlation might suggest that countries with higher government spending per capita tend to have fewer females relative to their GDP, possibly due to differences in social and economic structures. A careful reader should consider the potential impact of education and workforce participation rates on this relationship. A likely confounder could be the level of gender equality in each country.
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. This correlation could mislead by implying a causal relationship between government spending and demographic composition, when in fact other factors like cultural and economic development may be driving both indicators.
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.