More secondary school pupils per GDP correlates with lower remittances.
Comparing Secondary education, pupils, per unit of GDP with Personal remittances, paid (current US$), per capita across 162 countries, 2016–2025.
- Rank correlation
- -0.80
- Holding size constant
- -0.75
- Countries compared
- 162
- Period
- 2016–2025
What might link these
Countries with higher investment in secondary education relative to their GDP tend to have lower personal remittances per capita. This might suggest that stronger domestic educational opportunities could reduce the perceived need or incentive for individuals to work abroad and send money home.
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 does not imply that investing in education directly reduces remittances, as other socio-economic factors might be at play.
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.