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In recent years, migration has prevented population decline among high-income countries.

The World Bank defines high-income countries as those with a gross national income (GNI) per capita of over $14,000 in 2023. It includes countries like the United States, Chile, and Poland.

The chart shows annual population growth with and without migration in these countries.

The green line, which includes migration, shows that populations in high-income countries are still growing.

What would this have looked like without migration? The blue line gives you the answer — it shows the annual population growth only considering births and deaths in the country. It has been falling for decades and went negative in 2020.

Note that these figures apply to high-income countries as a group; in some countries, such as Italy or Japan, the total population is shrinking, even when considering migration. This data comes from the World Population Prospects dataset published by the United Nations.

Explore more data on population growth →

Life expectancy at birth dropped significantly across the world in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, rates are now returning to pre-pandemic levels. The chart shows this rebound, based on the latest estimates from the UN’s World Population Prospects.

Global life expectancy in 2022 matched the 2019 figure at 72.6 years. And it increased again in 2023, to 73.2 years.

Explore more insights from the latest revision of the UN’s population statistics →

Japan closed down most of its nuclear plants after the Fukushima Daiichi disaster in 2011, and nuclear production dropped dramatically.

You can see this in the chart above, which shows the electricity mix of Japan since 1985. It’s based on data from the Energy Institute.

Fossil fuel plants — notably coal — were ramped up to keep the lights on. But some nuclear plants have come back online, which is why you see nuclear production start to rise again.

Read our article on the death toll of the Fukushima and Chernobyl disasters →

People tend to think there are more immigrants in their country than there really are.

In the United States, for example, the average person believes that 33% of people were not born there. However, official estimates from government agencies show that the figure is just 15% — less than half as many.

In Japan, people guess that 10% of the population are immigrants, but the accurate figure is around 2%. For every 5 immigrants people think exist, there is only one in reality.

As the chart shows, this mismatch is common everywhere. The data comes from the 2023 Ipsos Perils of Perception report.

Explore the immigrant population share for all countries →

Haiti and the Dominican Republic are two Caribbean countries that share the same island, Hispaniola. However, despite sharing the same island, the two nations have developed very differently in recent decades. In 1990, Dominicans had twice the GDP per capita of Haitians. 32 years later, they are seven times richer than Haitians.

The chart shows both trajectories. While the Dominican Republic experienced sustained growth during the three decades, Haiti’s GDP per capita has barely grown and, at times, even slightly decreased. To allow for comparisons, all incomes are shown in international dollars, which account for differences in cost of living across countries.

Today, Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas.

Explore economic growth in your country →

At what age do women have children?

The chart shows the number of births in the United Kingdom since 1950, broken down by the mother's age. This is based on estimates from the latest UN World Population Prospects report.

You can see that, over time, fewer children are born to women in their teens and twenties. This number has been falling since the 1960s.

Instead, we see a rise in the number of births to women in their thirties.

Explore birth data across other countries →

The vast majority of people in the world — over 96% — live in the country where they were born. Only a small minority are international migrants.

International migrants are people who have lived in a country other than where they were born for more than one year. In contrast, natives live in the country where they were born.

Since 1990, the absolute number of international migrants has risen sharply, but their share of the global population has remained relatively unchanged due to population growth.

This data comes from the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA).

Explore the immigrant population share for all countries →

The average area burned by wildfires each year has fallen in the last few decades. This is due mainly to changes in land practices, including the intensification of agriculture and less savanna burning.

This chart shows the estimated area burnt by wildfires each year, broken down by land cover type. This data comes from the Global Wildfire Information System.

The area of shrublands and savannas burned each year has decreased since the early 2000s, while the area of forest burned has remained very similar.

Much of this decline has occurred in Africa and, to a lesser extent, in Oceania.

This doesn't mean that weather-related risks of wildfires have declined: warmer and drier conditions increase these risks. And despite a global reduction, countries can experience very large and anomalous years. Last year’s large burn in Canada is a clear example.

This year also looks to be on-track to be the largest wildfire year this century.

Explore wildfire data across the world, updated weekly →

In 2021, 1.2 million people died from diarrheal diseases. Around 340,000 of these deaths were in children under five years old. This makes diarrheal diseases one of the leading causes of death among people of all ages, but also children specifically.

These estimates come from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation’s Global Burden of Disease study.

Deaths from diarrheal diseases have fallen a lot in recent decades as a result of public health interventions. But more progress is possible.

Diarrheal deaths are preventable because they are primarily caused by pathogens, whose spread can be easily controlled. By increasing global access to clean water and sanitation, oral rehydration therapy, and vaccination, this major cause of death can be reduced substantially.

Explore our full page on diarrheal diseases, with more writing and over 40 interactive charts →

Around one in three people worldwide — that’s 2.8 billion — could not afford a healthy diet in 2022. This is based on the most recent estimates from the World Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

A “healthy diet” is defined as one that follows nutritional guidelines, making sure that someone has enough variety to meet all of their dietary needs. It is considered unaffordable when the lowest possible cost of the diet, along with essentials like housing and transportation, is higher than what someone earns each day.

In low- to middle-income countries like India or Pakistan and much of Sub-Saharan Africa, more than half of the population struggles to afford a healthy diet, with rates exceeding 90% in the poorest.

Read more about diet affordability →

Guyana, a small country in South America, has seen the fastest growth in gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in the world over the past decade.

This is illustrated in the chart, which shows GDP per capita for Guyana and the World, based on estimates from the World Bank.

The data is adjusted for inflation, so Guyana’s sharp growth is not due to price changes over time.

A large and sudden expansion in oil production has driven most of this growth. In 2020, Guyana began extracting oil. From 2020 to 2023, the country’s oil production grew 425%, making it a key contributor to global crude oil supply growth.

Over this period, Guyana’s GDP per capita rose from below the global average to well above it.

Read more about economic development and oil production →

On average, Americans spend about the same amount on food consumed at home as they did in the 1950s. But they spend a lot more in restaurants, cafes, and at work.

The chart shows the average amount of money spent on food, at home and away from home in the United States. This is based on data from the USDA Economic Research Service. It’s adjusted for inflation over time.

Today, the amount spent on food away from home is about the same as what is spent on food at home.

Explore data on food expenditure across the world →

Teenage pregnancy rates have fallen across all regions in the last few decades.

The chart shows the number of live births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 19 since 2000, based on data compiled by the United Nations.

Globally, rates have fallen by around one-third. This decline has been even more dramatic in some regions. For example, rates have fallen by more than two-thirds in Central and South Asia.

Birth rates have also fallen among adolescents aged 10 to 14 years old, where health concerns for pregnancy in such young girls are even greater.

Explore teenage pregnancy data for individual countries over time →

When it comes to demographic trends, few are as well known as the “baby boom”.

The baby boom was a sharp rise in the fertility rate toward the end of the Second World War and for decades after. It happened in several countries around the world, but it was especially pronounced in the United States.

Before the baby boom, the US had seen a long-term decline in the fertility rate, down to about 2 children per woman by the 1930s.

During the baby boom, the fertility rate rose sharply, almost doubling to nearly 4 children per woman — levels that hadn’t been seen since the beginning of the 20th century. By the early 1970s, the fertility rate had returned to about 2 children per woman. Today, it’s just over 1.6.

It’s estimated that more than 70 million people were born in the US between 1946 and 1964, the official years of the baby boom according to the US Census Bureau. By 1964, this generation comprised almost 40% of the nation’s population.

As such a large generation, “baby boomers” have played a significant role in shaping many social, economic, and political trends in modern US history.

Learn more about fertility rates over time →

The number of people dying in road accidents in the United Kingdom has fallen by around three-quarters since 1970.

The chart shows the number of road deaths over time, based on data from the OECD, which we just updated. This includes the deaths of pedestrians, drivers, passengers, and cyclists.

In the early 1970s, there were around 8,000 road deaths per year. This has dropped below 2,000 in recent years. Deaths reached a low in 2020 due to reduced traffic from the COVID-19 pandemic but have rebounded slightly since then.

This multi-decade decline is even steeper when we look at the number of deaths per kilometer driven.

Explore road death data for other countries →

In 2023, wind power generated nearly 60% of Denmark’s electricity. This made Denmark the country with the highest share of wind in its electricity mix. This is based on data from Ember.

Wind also contributes significantly to Denmark’s broader energy system. Data from the Energy Institute shows that wind power accounts for over a quarter of Denmark’s total primary energy consumption — the largest figure globally.

Denmark also ranks first in per capita wind power generation, with Sweden close behind.

Explore more data on energy sources in our Data Explorer →

When I was born in 1993, one-third of people in the United Kingdom said they “would not want homosexual neighbors”. Today, that’s less than 5%.

As you can see in the chart, the acceptance of same-sex relationships has increased in many other countries, too. This data comes from the Integrated Values Survey.

Attitudes to homosexuality tend to be far more positive in Western Europe and North and South America than in other parts of the world. In many countries across Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa, the majority of surveyed respondents still say they would not want homosexual neighbors.

Explore the data on attitudes to homosexuality across the world →

Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has led to increased military spending not only in the two countries themselves but also in other neighboring countries.

The chart, using inflation-adjusted data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, shows that Russia has increased its military spending to support the invasion, while Ukraine has expanded its budget tenfold to defend itself.

The war has also motivated several of Russia’s other neighbors to increase their military spending. For instance, in 2023, Poland almost doubled its military spending from 15 to 27 billion US$, and Finland raised its budget from 4.5 to 6.9 billion US$.

Other neighboring countries, like Lithuania and Estonia, have so far not made increases as dramatic but have returned to the longer-term expansion of their military budgets.

Some Western European countries, especially Denmark, have also already increased their military spending after Russia’s invasion.

Explore military spending data for every country →