Female primary enrolment shows a surprising negative link with GDP.
Comparing GDP (current US$) with Enrolment in primary education, female (number), gaps filled across 189 countries, 2018–2025.
- Rank correlation
- +0.64
- Holding size constant
- -0.42
- Countries compared
- 189
- Period
- 2018–2025
What might link these
While one might expect higher GDP to correlate with better educational outcomes, the negative partial correlation suggests a more complex relationship. It's possible that as countries develop and their economies grow, they may shift focus or resources away from primary education, or that other factors strongly associated with economic growth, like urbanization or changing family structures, influence enrolment in unexpected ways.
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 negative correlation could be misleading as it appears after controlling for population and GDP, indicating other unmeasured factors are 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.