Data Insights
Bite-sized insights on how the world is changing, written by our team.
Almost one billion children have died globally since 1950
The deaths of children are daily tragedies on an enormous scale. The UN estimates that between 1950 and 2021, 970 million children died. That’s almost a billion children who died in only 60 years.
The chart shows that the world has made progress. 22% of the children born in 1950 died before they were five years old. Since then, the global child mortality rate has declined to 3.7%.
In absolute terms, the number of child deaths has also declined: in 1950, 20 million children died; by the year 2000, this number had halved; and since then, it has halved again.
But the deaths of millions of young children every year remain one of the worst problems in the world and deserve much more attention.
What’s the leading cause of death in each country?
What's the leading cause of death in each country?
In most countries, it's cardiovascular disease or cancer, as shown on the map.
However, in Africa, infectious diseases are much more common. In several West African countries, the leading cause of death is diarrheal disease, malaria, or neonatal causes. In southern Africa, it's HIV/AIDS.
What’s tragic is how many still die from these causes despite being preventable with public health efforts and treatment. With greater access to clean water and sanitation, malaria bed nets, vaccines, neonatal healthcare, and antiretroviral therapy, many of these deaths could be prevented.
Japan has the highest ratio of elderly people relative to working-age people globally
Demographers define the “old-age dependency ratio” as the number of people older than 64, relative to the number of working-age people.
It’s in Japan that this ratio is the highest in the world. As the chart shows, it surpassed 50% in 2021. This means there are only two working-age people for every elderly person in Japan.
Italy and Finland come next, with 37% — closer to three working-age people for every elderly person. The global figure is 15% — a ratio of 1 to 6.
The world is aging overall, and some countries are aging much more rapidly than others.
The majority of people in the world now live in cities
One of the big demographic trends in recent decades has been the shift from rural places to cities.
Until 2020, most people in the world lived in smaller urban settings like towns and suburbs, with populations between 5,000 and 50,000. Since then, cities with more than 50,000 people have become the most popular living areas worldwide, as shown in the chart.
France’s nuclear fleet gives it one of the world’s lowest-carbon electricity grids
France generates two-thirds of its electricity from nuclear power. As the chart shows, that’s far more than the global average, just under 10%. Even though its share in France has declined slightly in recent years, it’s still its dominant power source.
Nuclear power is a low-carbon electricity source, allowing France to have a very clean electricity mix for decades.
Per unit of electricity, France emits far less carbon dioxide (CO2) than its neighbors and has some of the lowest-carbon power in the world. The global average is 438 grams of CO2 per kilowatt-hour of electricity generated. In France, this figure is 85 grams.
From 5% to 71% in 25 years: Kenya has made substantial progress in providing access to electricity
Those with access to electricity take many of its benefits for granted: food refrigeration reduces waste, the radio can keep us company during the day, and light at night makes it possible to get together after sunset.
25 years ago, according to data published by the World Bank, only 5% of people in Kenya had access to basic electricity and its benefits.
Since then, the country has made substantial progress, as the chart shows: by 2020, 71% of Kenyans had access to a basic electricity supply.
Cancer mortality has declined in many countries
The chart shows age-standardized death rates from cancer in different countries since 1950.
Age-standardized rates tell us about the impact of cancer among people of the same age. This allows for a fair comparison across time and between countries — for example, to see how rates for fifty-year-olds today compare to fifty-year-olds in the 1950s.
In the United States, for example, the age-standardized death rate from cancer has declined by around a third since its peak in 1990.
A significant driver has been the large decline in smoking, which causes a wide range of cancers. But we’ve also achieved many more advances in cancer medicine and public health, such as chemotherapy, immunotherapy, surgery, vaccination against HPV and hepatitis, treatment for H. pylori, and advances in screening, diagnosis, and monitoring.
The service sector now represents about half of employment across the world
As this data from the International Labour Organization shows, the share of service jobs in all global employment has increased in the last 3 decades, from 34% in 1991 to 51% in 2019.
In this slow but steady change in the world's economy, the share of employment in agriculture has seen an equivalent decrease, from 44% to 27%.
The share of employment in the industry sector has remained stable throughout this period, at 22%.
February 2024 was the ninth consecutive month of record-high temperatures
February this year marked the ninth consecutive month of record-breaking global temperatures.
We see this from monthly temperature anomalies. Anomalies compare current temperatures to historical averages, showing us shifts over time.
In the chart, each line represents the temperature anomaly in a given year. As you can see, the line for 2023 was markedly above every other year on the chart from June onward. And the first two months of 2024, visible in the top left corner, have also set new records.
In February, the global surface air temperature was 0.81°C above the 1991–2020 average for the same month.
Nuclear weapons tests are much less common than in the past
The first time a nuclear bomb was ever detonated was in the Trinity test, conducted by the United States in July 1945. Less than a month later, nuclear bombs were used against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Nuclear weapons have not been used in combat again. But more than 2,000 nuclear tests have been conducted by eight countries.
Between 1958 and 1961, the United States and the Soviet Union temporarily suspended nuclear tests. But, as we can see on the chart, their number peaked immediately afterward. In 1962, a total of 178 nuclear bombs were detonated — roughly one test every two days.
Thankfully, the number of nuclear tests has decreased rapidly since the mid-1980s. In the last two decades, only 6 tests have been conducted, all by North Korea. The last test took place in 2017.
Richer countries often use much of their crops for animal feed and biofuels
Richer countries tend to use less of their crops for human food, and more for animal feed and biofuels. This is what the chart shows: in several countries, less than a quarter of cereals are used for direct consumption as human food.
In poorer countries, supplies are tighter and they can’t afford the inefficiency. Most crop production goes directly to human consumption.
Colonialism meant that for centuries, many territories and people were ruled from elsewhere
Two hundred years ago, large parts of the world were ruled by a few European colonial powers, as the chart shows.
Since then, people in many countries have fought against colonial rule.
A first wave of countries gained independence in the 19th century, particularly in the Americas.
However, most countries did not gain independence until the middle of the 20th century.
Plastic recycling rates are increasing, but slowly, in many regions
Over the last twenty years, plastic waste recycling has considerably increased worldwide, as the chart shows.
OECD countries in the European Union, India, and China have spearheaded this growth. By 2019, recycling rates were 12–13%. Non-OECD Asian countries and Latin America have also made headway, but more slowly.
The United States and the Middle East & North Africa region have seen more sluggish advances, with the US only managing to reach a 4.5% recycling rate by 2019, according to the OECD data.
Different regional strategies and capacities have led to markedly different outcomes in plastic waste management.
The modal age at death has been rising
The “modal age at death” is the most common age at which people in a population die. The modal age at death for women in Japan in 2021 was 93. In France, it was 92.
This metric helps us understand trends in longevity at older ages. Unlike life expectancy, it is not affected by infant or child mortality.
You can see that over time, the figure has been rising steadily. In France in 1970, the modal age at death was 84 years for women, but now it is 8 years higher.
Large gains in longevity have occurred even among the elderly.
Japan’s cherry trees have been blossoming earlier due to warmer spring temperatures
The peak flowering of cherry trees in Kyoto, Japan, has been recorded since the ninth century. Yasuyuki Aono and colleagues from the Osaka Prefecture University collated this data from historical diaries and chronicles, indicating the dates on which cherry blossom viewing parties had been held or other observations of peak blossom.
In 2023, the peak cherry blossom happened on 25 March — the earliest date since recording began.
This long-run data is a proxy measure for how the climate has changed. The onset of the cherry blossom is linked with warmer temperatures. The combined effects of urbanization and higher temperatures due to climate change have caused the peak blossom to gradually move earlier in the year since the early 20th century.
Declining child mortality, fast and slow
Two centuries ago, about one in three children in Sweden died before they were five years old, as you can see on the chart.
Since then, the child mortality rate in Sweden has declined to 0.2%.
South Korea achieved a similar reduction much faster. This is often the case: those countries that first achieve an improvement in living conditions often need much longer than some of those countries catching up later — countries that catch up can learn from what worked elsewhere.
A record number of objects went into space in 2023
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2,664 objects were launched into space in 2023. This figure breaks the record set the previous year.
The chart shows that US agencies and companies were responsible for launching 2,166 of these objects; that’s 81% of the global total.
Within American launches, 1,935 objects — 73% of the global total — belonged to Starlink, the constellation of satellites operated by the aerospace company SpaceX.
The rapid growth of the global satellite constellation has the power to help expand Internet connectivity, but also contributes to increasing concerns regarding space debris and the congestion of Earth’s orbital environment.
Indonesia’s shift to cleaner cooking fuels has greatly improved air quality and health
In 2000, less than 10% of the population in Indonesia had access to clean cooking fuels. This is now over 80%, as the chart shows.
Clean cooking fuels are those that, when burned, emit less than the World Health Organization's recommended amounts of air pollutants. They reduce the burden of air pollution — and its health impacts — for the households that use them.
In 2007, the Indonesian government launched a national program to move from kerosene cooking fuels to liquefied petroleum gas.
This shift has greatly reduced particulate pollution and improved health outcomes. Death rates from indoor air pollution have fallen steeply.
Extreme poverty in China has been almost eliminated — first in urban, then in rural regions
In 1981, 97% of people in the Chinese countryside lived in extreme poverty. Even in cities, it was more than 70%.
Since then, large economic growth has made it possible for hundreds of millions of people in China to leave extreme poverty behind, first in cities and then in the countryside.
By 2020, the share of people living in extreme poverty in both urban and rural areas was below 1%.
Solar and wind gain an edge over coal in a number of countries
Solar and wind have surpassed coal as a source of electricity generation in a number of countries, as the chart shows. This marks a substantial shift towards more sustainable sources of energy.
Even in the United States, the world’s third-largest producer of coal electricity, the gap between solar and wind power, and coal is now very small. The adoption of clean energy is accelerating.