July 09, 2025
Globally, the share of the population living in extreme poverty has declined fast, from 38% in 1990 to 9% in 2024.
Some countries, however, have not made any progress against poverty. Four of them are in Southeast Africa, as shown in the chart. In Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, and Madagascar, most people still live in extreme poverty, and this hasn’t changed in decades.
Poverty has remained high because these economies have not achieved economic growth in recent decades.
In the 1990s, most extremely poor people lived in countries that went on to have strong economic growth. Today, however, a substantial share of the poorest people live in economies that have not grown in decades. Based on current trends, this means that the world cannot expect an end to extreme poverty.
Whether or not the economies that are home to the poorest people in the world start to grow will determine whether the world ends extreme poverty.
I’ve written more about this in “The history of the end of poverty has just begun”, where I explain why economic growth is key to ending poverty →
Yesterday
Child mortality rates in China have fallen from more than 20% in 1950 to less than 1% today.
But this steady progress was interrupted in the late 1950s during the “Great Leap Forward”. This was China’s national plan to industrialize rapidly, but it resulted in widespread famine and economic turmoil.
As the chart shows, child mortality rates spiked in China over this period, with up to one in three children dying before reaching the age of five. This change was so dramatic that it is also clearly visible in the global trend.
This data comes from the UN’s World Population Prospects.
April 2
Around 4 in 10 women worldwide live in countries where abortion is illegal or highly restricted. But these bans do not stop abortions completely; many women still get them, but in unsafe and unsanitary conditions.
A study published in The Lancet estimated that 45% of abortions globally are unsafe. In some regions, the share is estimated to be around three-quarters. You can see this in the chart.
This data is around ten years old, but represents the latest estimates available (suggesting that this topic gets very little attention).
Unsafe abortions dramatically increase the health risks for women. Safe abortions have very low mortality rates, typically below 1 death per 100,000 abortions.
In regions where the majority of abortions are unsafe, mortality rates can be several hundred times higher; in Western and Middle Africa, around 1 in 200 abortions result in the woman dying.
It’s estimated that approximately 8% of maternal deaths in the world are caused by unsafe abortions. That’s 23,000 women every year.
March 31
Depression, anxiety, and other mental health problems are common everywhere. They are not confined to any particular income level.
But access to care is rare. In much of the world, people who struggle with their mental health have almost no psychologists or psychiatrists to turn to.
Mental health care is scarce in all places, but it is much scarcer in poor countries. Governments in high-income countries spend about $66 per person per year on mental health care, as the chart shows. In low-income countries, that figure is $0.04.
This gap in spending reflects a gap in people. As the WHO’s latest Mental Health Atlas highlights, there is roughly one psychiatrist per million people in low-income countries. High-income countries have 70 times more.
A recent study in the Lancet Psychiatry estimated that globally, only 9% of people with major depressive disorder receive a “minimally adequate treatment”. In high-income countries, it is 27%; in Sub-Saharan Africa, just 2%.
Hundreds of millions of people in poorer countries live with treatable conditions and have no access to a psychologist or psychiatrist. It is one of the largest gaps in global health — and one that receives remarkably little attention or funding.
There are efforts to close this gap without waiting for the workforce to catch up. One approach is to train lay counsellors — people without formal clinical qualifications who learn to provide psychological support. Randomized trials in India and Zimbabwe have shown this can be effective for depression.
Another approach is to use technology: apps and, increasingly, AI-based tools that can extend the reach of limited clinical expertise. These are not substitutes for a functioning mental health system, but in places where that system barely exists, they offer a starting point.
March 28
There are two ways to produce seafood: catch fish in the wild or farm your own. Seafood farming is often called “aquaculture”. Aquaculture is dominated by the farming of fish, but also includes other organisms, such as crustaceans and aquatic plants.
Aquaculture has grown rapidly over the last few decades. In fact, as the chart shows, it has overtaken wild catch since 2013.
This has relieved some pressure on wild fish stocks: if this increased demand for fish had been satisfied by wild catch, then many more would be severely overexploited.
March 26
Last year, three-quarters of the world’s countries had unemployment rates below 10%, according to data from the International Labour Organization. Colombia, where I come from, is in that group.
I initially found Colombia’s relatively low unemployment rate surprising, because it didn’t match what I could see around me: many people doing extremely precarious work.
This chart offers an explanation. It shows, for a selection of countries of different income levels, what share of workers hold informal jobs, meaning work that lacks social protection and basic employment rights (no guaranteed benefits, no formal safety net).
As the chart shows, in Colombia, that share is almost 57%. In many lower-income countries, the share is far higher.
The reality is that low unemployment and widespread informal work can, and often do, happen at the same time. The reason this isn't paradoxical comes down to how these statistics are defined.
To count as employed in labor statistics, a person only needs to have worked for at least one hour during the survey’s reference period, often the past week. The definition is broad and includes self-employment, selling things on the street, and unpaid work in a family farm or family business. Both formal and informal jobs are included.
This means the unemployment rate can remain relatively low in poor countries, not because most workers have found stable, protected jobs, but because many have been absorbed into informal employment.
March 24
The United Kingdom was the birthplace of coal. It has now, effectively, died there.
As shown in the chart, in the late 1980s, around two-thirds of the UK’s electricity came from coal. By the time I was born in the 1990s, this had dropped to just over half.
The use of coal has plummeted in my lifetime. It now makes up around 0.1% of the UK’s electricity.
Coal was first replaced by gas, but is now being pushed out by wind, solar, and biomass.
March 21
In a recent Data Insight, I wrote about how Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world at the beginning of the 20th century. Today, I want to follow up with a striking comparison between Spain and Argentina.
The chart shows GDP per capita for Argentina and Spain over the last two centuries. These are historical estimates from the Maddison Project, and the data is adjusted for inflation and differences in the cost of living.
When Argentina declared independence from Spain in 1816, the two countries had very similar GDP per capita. By the late 19th century, Argentina had become richer than its former colonial power, and it stayed ahead for many decades. Spain then started growing faster in the 1960s, and by the mid-1970s it had caught up.
Continued economic growth in Spain after the 1980s drove the large gap we see today. It kept GDP per capita on a steep upward path into the 21st century. Argentina, by contrast, grew more slowly and went through several economic crises, visible on the chart.
Today, Argentina’s GDP per capita is closer to my home country of Colombia than to Western European countries like Spain. This helps us see how much of a difference economic growth can make within just a few generations.
