An inverse or negative relationship is a mathematical relationship in which one variable decreases as another increases, expressed as "a α 1/b".. For example, there is an inverse relationship between education and unemployment — that is, as education increases, the rate of unemployment decreases.

Inverse relationships and their counterpart, direct relationships, are widely used in the physical sciences to describe the relationship between two variables in an equation.

In economic graphing, two variables are said to have an inverse relationship if the graph line slopes downward to the right.

See also

• Inverse relation
• Direct relationship

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