North Korea's IQ

It provides an excellent test case for the two main theories concerning group differences in IQ.

Written by Noah Carl.

Does North Korea – the reclusive, one-party communist state – have a high IQ? According to the latest version of Lynn and Becker’s dataset, there are no IQ data available for the country. Nor has it participated in any student assessment studies like PISA or TIMSS. So the short answer is: we don’t know. We do know its fraternal neighbour to the south has an average IQ in the region of 103, making it one of the world’s smartest countries.

Why care about North Korea’s IQ, anyway? Well, it provides an excellent test case for the two main theories concerning group differences in IQ: the environmentalist theory and the hereditarian theory.

Under the latter theory, which posits that genes make a non-trivial or substantial contribution to group differences in IQ, you’d expect North Korea to have a relatively high IQ – perhaps not quite as high as South Korea, but still pretty high. That’s because North Koreans are genetically very similar to South Koreans. Indeed, Korea was a single nation for most of its history, only splitting into North and South at the end of World War II. The two nations could be slightly different genetically if they were two selected subsamples of the original 1945 population. For example, it’s possible that genotypically smarter Koreans were more likely to be in the South at the time the country was divided. However, any such effect is almost certainly small.

Under the environmentalist theory, which insists that genes make no more than a trivial contribution to group differences in IQ, you’d expect North Korea to have a low IQ. That’s because North Korea is one of the poorest, most isolated countries in the world – and it’s generally assumed that lack of material resources is the main obstacle to cognitive development.

Just how poor is North Korea? The government does not publish official GDP statistics, so we have to rely on estimates from third parties. The Bank of Korea estimates that in 2021, North Korea’s GNI per capita was 3.5% of the South Korean level, or around $1,500. The CIA estimates North Korea’s GDP per capita in 2015 at around $1,700. The Maddison Project estimates North Korean GDP per capita in 2010 at around $1,800. Yet it also estimates that GDP per capita fell to around $1,600 in 2018.

It is unclear how accurate these figures are. A 2016 paper sought to estimate North Korea’s GDP per capita using information from one of the most reliable sources of data we have for the country, the 2008 Census (which was carried out with external assistance). The census revealed that 93% of households used coal or firewood for cooking – rather than oil, gas or electricity. Based on the relationship between use of solid fuel for cooking and GDP per capita across other developing countries, the author estimated North Korea’s GDP per capita in 2008 at around $1,200.

Other papers have attempted to estimate North Korea’s GDP per capita using data on nighttime luminosity. As you probably know from images like the one below, lack of development in North Korea is clearly visible from space. While at least half the territory of the South shows up as light, in the North only the capital of Pyongyang does – and even that city is much less bright than most settlements in the surrounding countries.

Source: The Economist.

Based on the relationship between nighttime luminosity and GDP across regions of China, one study estimated North Korea’s GDP per capita in 2018 at only $800. Another study using roughly the same method obtained a figure of $1,400.

There are other indications of the exceptionally poor living conditions in North Korea. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that over 40% of the population is undernourished – one of the highest rates in the world. Likewise, the first study mentioned in the previous paragraph estimated that about 60% of the country lives in extreme poverty. As recently as the late 1990s there was a major famine, “the March of Suffering”, which may have killed up to 3.5 million people.

Overall, evidence suggests that living conditions in North Korea are comparable to those in some of the poorest countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Since the average measured IQ in that part of the world is in the low-to-mid 70s, an environmentalist might predict that North Korea’s IQ would be similar. Of course, many environmentalists claim that the average IQ in Sub-Saharan Africa is actually in the high 70s or low 80s. But even using those higher estimates, North Koreans’ IQ would still be some 20–25 points below that of their former countrymen in the South.

What if we take a broader perspective and consider proxies for average cognitive ability?

North Korea has won zero science Nobel Prizes, though the same is true of South Korea. It registers only a handful of patents each year, but this could be because the country is largely cut off from the global economy and frequently violates intellectual property laws itself. The country produces few high-tech goods. All these signs point to a low average IQ.

However, there’s one sector of the economy that is highly advanced: weapons manufacturing. North Korea is one of only nine countries to possess nuclear weapons. Not only that, but it has exported ballistic missile technology to places such as Egypt, Iran and Pakistan. These facts already suggest there must be a non-trivial number of North Koreans with very high cognitive ability. No country in Sub-Saharan Africa aside from South Africa has a domestic missile program, let alone the capability to develop nuclear weapons.

Another indication of high cognitive ability in North Korea is the nation’s performance at the International Mathematical Olympiad. This is an annual competition for high-school students that’s known to be extremely challenging. Many medalists have gone on to become professional mathematicians, with some achieving great prestige. A study published this year collected data on 2,785 medalists who participated in the competition up to 2005, and found that 61% had obtained a PhD (almost invariably in a math-intensive field). Unsurprisingly, performance at the IMO is strongly associated with national IQ.

The medal table for countries with at least 10 golds is shown below. As you can see, North Korea has won 22 golds – which is more than Italy, Israel, India or the Netherlands.¹ It’s also ten times more than all the countries in Africa combined. In fact, there are 134 countries in the world with a higher GDP per capita than North Korea that have won fewer gold medals at the IMO. Saudi Arabia has a GDP per capita almost fifty times higher but has won precisely zero.

Ranks 1–17 on the left-hand side; ranks 18–35 on the right-hand side. Source: Wikipedia.

Although North Korea’s military technology and IMO performance rule out an IQ as low as Sub-Saharan Africa’s, they are consistent with a range of possible IQs. For example, Pakistan was able to develop nuclear weapons but has a measured IQ in the low-to-mid 80s, and Iran does very well at the IMO but also has a measured IQ in the low-to-mid 80s.

On the other hand, Pakistan and Iran are much larger and more ethnically diverse than North Korea, and it’s likely their accomplishments come disproportionately from the smarter subpopulations. In other words, the variance of cognitive ability is presumably greater, and there’s an absolutely larger number of people at any given level of cognitive ability. So in order for North Korea to have produced similar numbers of people with exceptional cognitive ability, its mean must be somewhat higher. A figure in the low 90s seems like the minimum that is consistent with the country’s accomplishments.²

If this reasoning is approximately right, then environmentalism is almost certainly wrong. North Koreans have living conditions comparable to Sub-Saharan Africans but display an average IQ 15–20 points higher. Therefore, a sizeable part of the cross-national variation in cognitive ability cannot be due to living conditions. If we assume the difference in living conditions between North and South Korea reduces the former’s IQ by 10 points, then raising the living conditions of Sub-Saharan Africa to the South Korean level would increase the average IQ from 73 to 83.³

Despite being one of the poorest, most isolated countries in the world, North Korea has an advanced weapons manufacturing sector and an impressive record at the International Mathematical Olympiad. These accomplishments are consistent with an average IQ of around 93. More than anything else, what North Korea illustrates is the woeful inefficiency of autarchic communism.

Noah Carl is Editor at Aporia.

---

Consider supporting Aporia with a paid subscription:

You can also follow us on Twitter.

1. North Korea was disqualified for cheating twice: once in 1991 and then again in 2010. However, the 2010 decision was controversial, with some observers disputing it.

2. Note that North Korea has developed nuclear weapons and achieved success at the IMO. Pakistan has not achieved success at the IMO, while Iran has not developed nuclear weapons (though it may do so soon).

3. Richard Lynn concluded that genotypic IQ in Sub-Saharan Africa is around 80, so this is slightly higher than his estimate.