Life expectancy is returning to pre-pandemic levels

Famines are still a major global problem. From 2020 to 2023 alone, they caused over a million deaths.

Yet the long-term trend shows significant progress. In the late 1800s and the first half of the 1900s, it was common for famines to kill over 10 million people per decade. This was true as recently as the 1960s, when China’s Great Leap Forward became the deadliest famine in history.

But as you can see in the chart, that number has dropped sharply, to about one to two million per decade.

This improvement is even more striking given that the world’s population has grown substantially. Despite many more people living on Earth, far fewer die from famines than before.

This progress has resulted from various factors, including increased food production, poverty reduction, fewer conflicts, and more accountable governments.

Learn more about why fewer people die from famines today →

In 2021, malaria was the leading cause of death among children under five in more than 20 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

In Nigeria, over 125,000 young children died from it — that’s 340 every day, one child around every four minutes. The country accounts for one-third of all under‑5 malaria deaths in the world.

Malaria is both preventable and treatable. But millions of children still lack access to basic protection: bed nets, timely treatment, and safe living conditions. We’ve seen malaria eliminated elsewhere.

The tools exist; the challenge is getting them to those who need them most.

Read more from my colleague Max Roser on why progress is possible — and how each of us can contribute →

Over 100 million infants are vaccinated against measles every year, which means more than 80% of one-year-olds are protected from this potentially life-threatening disease. This global effort has saved millions of lives.

That scale should be reassuring. Measles vaccines are safe and reduce the risk of infection by over 95%, making them one of our most powerful tools to prevent childhood deaths. Outbreaks have become increasingly rare in many countries, global infant mortality has fallen, and measles vaccination alone is estimated to have saved more than 94 million lives.

But that progress is under threat: vaccination rates have fallen in recent years, as the chart shows, and fewer children are getting the protection they need. When coverage slips, measles spreads rapidly; more children suffer and die from a disease we can easily prevent.

Read my colleague Hannah’s article on the number of lives saved by childhood vaccinations →

How will artificial intelligence (AI) impact people’s jobs?

This question has no simple answer, but the more AI systems can independently carry out long, job-like tasks, the greater their impact will likely be.

The chart shows a trend in this direction for software-related tasks. The length of tasks — in terms of how long they take human professionals — that AIs can do on their own has increased quickly in the past couple of years.

Before 2023, even the best AI systems could only perform tasks that take people around 10 seconds, such as selecting the right file.

Today, the best AIs can fairly reliably (with an 80% success rate) do tasks that take people 20 minutes or more, such as finding and fixing bugs in code or configuring common software packages.

It’s unclear how much these results generalize; other factors, like reliability, need to be considered.

But AI capabilities continue to improve, and if developments keep pace for the next few years, we could see systems capable of performing tasks that take people days or even longer.

Read more about how we can help make our future with AI go well →

Road transport is responsible for around three-quarters of global carbon dioxide emissions from transport. Switching from petrol and diesel to electric vehicles is an important solution to decarbonize our economies.

This chart shows the change in share of new cars that were electric in China, the European Union (EU), and the United States (US) between 2020 and 2023. This includes fully electric and plug-in hybrid cars, though most are fully electric.

In 2020, electric cars were rare everywhere. But by 2023, over one-third of new vehicles in China were electric, compared to less than a quarter in the EU and under a tenth in the US.

While we only have annual data up to 2023, preliminary figures suggest that in 2024, electric cars outsold conventional ones for the first time in China.

Explore data on electric car sales for more countries →

Many previous generations of women in my family would not have been allowed to do the work I do today — even if computers, the Internet, and Our World in Data had existed then. Thankfully, that’s no longer the case where I live: I’ve had the same right to get an education, work, and build a career as my brother.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case everywhere.

The map highlights the countries where women had legal restrictions on their rights to work in formal employment in 2023. All are in the Middle East, North Africa, or Sub-Saharan Africa.

These restrictions can include the need for permission or documentation from a male family member — such as a husband or brother — to work, or legal consequences if they don’t follow working restrictions.

While nearly 20 countries still have these legal barriers for women, this number was much larger in the past: in 1970, it was almost 70.

This data only reflects legal restrictions on working rights. In other countries, strong social or cultural pressures still mean that women are less likely to be in formal employment than men, even if they’re legally allowed to.

Explore more data on female participation in the workforce →

In the United States, women spend more time with children than men. This is true for adults of any age.

The difference is especially large for people in their 20s and 30s. For example, at age 35, women spend an average of five hours per day with children, while men spend around three hours. (Considered here are people’s children, step and foster children, grandchildren, and other family members under 18.)

Although the gap is smaller for older people, even in later life, women spend more time with children than men.

This gap reflects traditional gender roles, where women do more childcare and less paid work. But it also has broader implications: women spend less time with friends and alone than men, which may affect their social connections, leisure, and well-being.

This data comes from the American Time Use Survey by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Learn more about how men and women spend their time throughout life →