Clientelism linked to lower women's empowerment
Comparing Clientelism Index with Key features of womens political empowerment, gaps filled across 173 countries, 1948–2025.
- Rank correlation
- -0.66
- Holding size constant
- -0.57
- Countries compared
- 173
- Period
- 1948–2025
What might link these
The negative correlation between the Clientelism Index and women's political empowerment might suggest that patronage-based systems hinder women's participation in politics. A careful reader should consider the potential impact of cultural and societal factors, such as traditional gender roles, which could be a likely confounder. The relationship may be influenced by these underlying factors rather than a direct link between clientelism and women's empowerment.
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 could mislead by implying a direct causal relationship between clientelism and women's empowerment, when in fact the relationship may be driven by other underlying factors.
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.