Human rights and democracy linked to youth dependency, controlling for size and wealth
Comparing Human Rights Index vs. Electoral Democracy Index with Population ages 0-14, total, per unit of GDP across 169 countries, 2025–2025.
- Rank correlation
- -0.57
- Holding size constant
- -0.42
- Countries compared
- 169
- Period
- 2025–2025
What might link these
Countries with a higher proportion of young people relative to their GDP tend to have lower human rights and electoral democracy scores. This could be because developing nations often struggle with both child welfare and political freedoms simultaneously, with rapid population growth potentially straining resources. However, this association does not imply causation, and other factors like historical stability or conflict could influence both.
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 might be driven by underlying development challenges that affect both demographic structures and governance.
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.