Countries with heavier cattle yield tend to have fewer young boys per GDP unit.
Comparing Meat of cattle with the bone, fresh or chilled — Yield/Carcass Weight with Population ages 0-14, male, per unit of GDP across 163 countries, 2024–2025.
- Rank correlation
- -0.58
- Holding size constant
- -0.48
- Countries compared
- 163
- Period
- 2024–2025
What might link these
Agricultural intensity (higher carcass weight) may correlate with lower youth dependency ratios, possibly due to economic specialization or dietary shifts. However, the link could be confounded by meat consumption patterns, urbanization, or agricultural policies favoring export-oriented livestock over domestic food systems.
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. Correlation does not imply causation, and residual confounding (e.g., diet, trade policies) may distort the relationship.
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.