March 05, 2025
People might associate democracy with having the right to vote. But meaningful democracy is much more than that.
In 2022, nearly every country granted its citizens the right to vote. 85% of them had an elected parliament and government. In 82%, elections were multi-party, meaning that people had more than one option on the ballot. You can see this in the chart.
But, fewer than two-thirds of these elections were genuinely competitive. In others, voters were systematically pressured or intimidated, the timing of elections was violated, or election fraud influenced the results.
Even more concerning, in only 39% of countries were people able to express their political opinions and associate freely.
As a result, just over one-third of countries recently held elections that met all of these democratic criteria and can be considered truly free and fair.
Find out which countries have all democratic criteria and which don't →
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 →
May 16
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 →
May 14
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 →
May 12
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 →
May 09
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 →
May 07
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 →
May 05
Mobile phones have achieved what few technologies do: they’ve been adopted rapidly by people all over the world, in both rich and poor regions.
The chart shows how mobile subscriptions grew between 2000 and 2023. This is given per 100 people in each world region. If the number is over 100, it means some people own more than one mobile device. (This data doesn’t tell us the percentage of people with a phone, as some individuals own multiple devices.)
Mobile phone subscriptions have risen sharply everywhere in just a few decades. Even in the poorest parts of the world, like Sub-Saharan Africa, subscriptions grew from just 2 per 100 people to 89. In South Asia, they went from less than 1 to 84.
Still, this rise matters because mobile phones allow people to learn, connect, and build, even in places without physical infrastructure (like roads or banks). For example, mobile money systems enable people to save, send, and receive money without needing a bank branch or an Internet connection. This has helped millions improve their financial security.
Explore more data on mobile phone subscriptions →
