Countries with higher GDP per capita have a larger gender gap in overweight rates.
Comparing Share of overweight men vs women with Gdp worldbank constant usd, per capita across 193 countries, 2024–2025.
- Rank correlation
- +0.63
- Holding size constant
- +0.50
- Countries compared
- 193
- Period
- 2024–2025
What might link these
Higher GDP may enable greater food abundance and sedentary lifestyles, but cultural norms or healthcare access could drive gendered differences in weight. A careful reader should note that correlation does not imply causation, and other factors like diet quality or labor participation might play a role.
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 could be distorted by unmeasured variables like urbanization or dietary habits.
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.