The world is getting more of its electricity from renewables but less from nuclear power

Several countries have recently managed to stop and even reverse the erosion of their democratic institutions.

The chart illustrates these turnarounds using the liberal democracy index from the Varieties of Democracy project. This index measures key aspects of democracy, such as the fairness of elections and checks on government power. It ranges from 0 (highly autocratic) to 1 (highly democratic).

The four countries in the chart all saw serious declines in democracy over the past 20 years—these declines are shown in red. In Thailand, democracy eroded quickly, while in Zambia, it happened more slowly.

Still, in each case, people resisted growing authoritarianism. As a result, these countries were able to partially or fully restore previous levels of liberal democracy.

These examples show that when democracy deteriorates, its fate is not sealed, and democratic institutions can be reclaimed.

Read more about how democratic decline has been reversed before in my article →

Homicide rates in Brazil are among some of the highest in the world, and young people are more likely to be victims.

Another large killer of young people is road injuries. But in Brazil, the number of homicide deaths among young people is twice as high as that of road fatalities.

You can see this in the chart: an estimated 48,000 people aged 15 to 49 years died by homicide in 2021 — almost double the 25,000 who died from road injuries.

These comparisons are based on data from the IHME’s Global Burden of Disease study. Note that estimates of homicides can vary by source, as explained by my colleagues Bastian Herre and Fiona Spooner.

Explore more data on homicide rates across the world, including comparisons of different sources →

The HIV epidemic — which started in the early 1980s and continued into the 1990s — has had lasting impacts that continue today. Almost one million people still die from HIV/AIDS every year globally.

However, some countries were hit much harder than others.

In the chart, you can see the share of all deaths in a given year that were caused by HIV/AIDS in four countries in Sub-Saharan Africa that were badly affected.

At the height of the epidemic, more than half of all deaths in Zimbabwe and Botswana and almost 40% in South Africa and Namibia were caused by the disease.

Thankfully, interventions to prevent the spread of HIV and treatments such as antiretroviral therapy have reduced death rates across the world. But more than one in ten deaths in these countries are still caused by AIDS today.

Read our article on antiretroviral therapy and the millions of lives it has saved →

In 2008, Bhutan started measuring the “Gross Happiness Index” as an official metric to track the well-being of its population. As a result, it’s often coined the “Land” or “Kingdom of Happiness”.

Bhutan tracks gross happiness with in-depth surveys, which other countries do not. How does it compare across similar metrics where we can make these comparisons? Despite its reputation, it’s actually not an outlier.

Self-reported life satisfaction is one internationally comparable metric measured in the annual World Happiness Report. Respondents in every country are asked to rate their lives based on a 10-step ladder, where 0 represents the worst possible life, and 10 is the best.

Self-reported life satisfaction tends to be higher in richer countries, although there is a spread among countries with similar gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. The chart plots one against the other.

For its income level, Bhutan has a fairly average life satisfaction score; in the global comparison, it’s about as happy as we would expect based on the incomes of people in the country.

Explore more data on levels of happiness across the world →

For many decades, most children in Europe were born to mothers in their twenties. However, since the mid-1970s, there has been a steady increase in the number of women giving birth in their thirties.

As the chart shows, since 2015, women in their thirties have given birth to the greatest number of babies; in the same year, it became more common for a woman in her forties to give birth than for women in their teens.

Many factors are causing these changes, including women spending more years in education and developing their careers, easily accessible contraception, improvements in fertility treatment, and high childcare costs.

Explore at what age women are having children in your country →

Antibiotics can play an important role in preventing disease and improving the health of animals. But overusing them, particularly for livestock, poses a risk to human health through antibiotic resistance.

Over the last decade, Europe has made much progress in reducing antibiotic use in farm animals. This has been achieved through stricter regulations and, in some countries, taxes on antibiotics.

The chart shows the change in sales of these antimicrobials for livestock between 2010 and 2022. It shows a range of European countries, with a few examples highlighted in bold.

Antibiotic use has fallen by over half in some countries, such as the UK, Italy, France, and the Netherlands.

These countries have still managed to maintain productive agricultural sectors by focusing on other ways to manage disease risk and animal growth, such as vaccinations, ventilation, cleaner equipment, and high-quality diets.

Read more about the differences in antibiotic use for livestock across the world →