More working-age women per GDP unit linked to lower democracy vs. human rights scores.
Comparing Human Rights Index vs. Electoral Democracy Index with Population ages 15-64, female, per unit of GDP across 169 countries, 2025–2025.
- Rank correlation
- -0.57
- Holding size constant
- -0.41
- Countries compared
- 169
- Period
- 2025–2025
What might link these
Societies with a higher proportion of working-age women relative to economic output might face more entrenched patriarchal structures, which could also impede progress in human rights and electoral democracy. However, this correlation doesn't imply that a higher female labor force participation directly causes a decline in these indices, as other societal factors could be at play.
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 observed relationship could be driven by unmeasured societal norms or historical factors that influence both female labor force participation and the quality of democracy and human rights.
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.