Just recently, I read an article on Bloomberg "Three Reasons Japan’s Economic Pain Is Getting Worse", which talked about one of the main reason for which Japan's economy has slowed down in the past one and half decade is due to lower birth rate and marriage rate. So, I thought to do little further research on the correlation between marriage and birth rate with a country's performance. I looked at two parameters (GDP growth rate and 'Debt-To-GDP Ratio')to evaluate the performance of a country's economy. 'Debt-To-GDP Ratio' measure gives an idea of the ability of a country to make future payments on its debt. If a country were unable to pay its debt, it would default, which could cause a panic in the domestic and international markets. The higher the debt-to-GDP ratio, the less likely the country will pay its debt back, and the higher its risk of default.
When we look at the data (refer the table below); it seems like there is a weak correlation between 'marriage rate' and health of a high performing country (decent GDP growth and low 'Debt-To-GDP Ratio') like Russia, China and USA and there is a strong correlation between 'birth rate' and low performing economies like Japan and Greece. If we look at the data for Australia, Israel South Korea then definitely it looks like there is strong correlation between 'marriage rate; Birth Rate' and it's performance (low 'Debt-To-GDP Ratio' and decent GDP growth).
Note: As there was no 'marriage rate' data available for India, I could not derive any conclusion on India.
Russia: Russia has highest marriage rate (8.5) and it's 'Debt-To-GDP Ratio' is the lowest (8.7) and GDP rate is 4.3% (rank: 6th).
China: China has 2nd highest marriage rate (7.3) and it's -To-GDP Ratio' is the 6th in the rank (43.5) and GDP rate is 9.9% (rank: 1st)
USA: USA has 3rd highest marriage rate (6.8) and it's 'Debt-To-GDP Ratio' is the 15th in the rank (103.0) and GDP rate is 2.3% (rank: 10th). This is where the data is not supporting that there is a strong correlation between marriage rate and health of a country.
I could not see any correlation between birth rate, marriage rate and health of growing country; however, when we look at bottom performers in terms of GDP growth rate and high 'Debt-To-GDP Ratio' then definitely there is a strong correlation between birth rate and health of the country.
Japan: Has the highest 'Debt-To-GDP Ratio' (208.2), GDP growth rate is 1.8% and it's birth rate is the lowest (7.31) and marriage rate is 5.5, which ranks at 8th in the marriage rate ranking. But the point to note is the concern of declining YoY marriage rate.
Greece: Has the 2nd highest 'Debt-To-GDP Ratio' (165.3), GDP growth rate is the lowest at -4.8% and it's birth rate is the 5th lowest (9.21) and marriage rate is 5.8, which ranks at 8th in the marriage rate ranking. But the point to note is the concern of declining YoY marriage rate.
Top 6 countries with highest marriage rate:
Country Marriage Rate
Russia 8.5
China 7.3
USA 6.8
Israel 6.8
South Korea 6.2
Greece 5.8
Top 6 countries with highest birth rate:
Country Birth Rate
India 20.97
Israel 19.24
Brazil 17.79
Ireland 16.1
USA 13.83
New Zealand 13.68
Top 6 countries with highest GDP growth rate
Country Avg. GDP Growth Rate (2010 and 2011)
China 9.9%
India 9.0%
Brazil 5.1%
South Korea 4.9%
Israel 4.8%
Russia 4.3%
Top 6 countries with lowest 'Debt-To-GDP Ratio'
Country 'Debt-To-GDP Ratio'
Russia 8.7
Australia 30.3
South Korea 33.3
New Zealand 33.7
Switzerland 38.7
China 43.5
Sources:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/divorce.htm
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-25/three-reasons-japan-s-economic-pain-is-getting-worse.html
http://unstats.un.org
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/mbs/app/DataSearchTable.aspx
www.indexmundi.com
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG
https://www.cia.gov
http://www.investopedia.com
http://www.unicef.org
