per capita

For each person; in proportion to the number of people in a population — used to standardise statistics across populations of different sizes for meaningful comparison.

• (Latin phrase used as a unit)

• per capita income
• GDP per capita
• per capita consumption
• per capita spending
• per capita basis

1. 1.China's total GDP rivals America's, but its GDP per capita is about one-sixth — because the economic output is divided among four times as many people. (population-adjusted comparison)
2. 2.New Zealand's per capita carbon emissions are about 7 tonnes annually — lower than Australia (15t) but higher than the global average (4.5t). (normalised statistic)

• per person (for each individual)
• per head (for each person — informal)

Latin for "by heads" — "per" (by, for each) + "capita" (heads, plural of caput) — counting by heads