Data Insights
Bite-sized insights on how the world is changing, written by our team.
6 in 10 people in the world regularly use the Internet
The Internet is one of the world’s fastest-growing technologies.
In 2010, just 30% of the global population was online. Within a decade, this figure had doubled to 60% in 2020. And it’s still growing rapidly, as the chart shows.
There are, however, large inequalities. In North America and Europe, more than 80% are online, compared to just 30% in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The quality of this access is also very different: this indicator is based on someone having used the Internet at least once in the last three months. The experience of someone having non-stop connections on their smartphone will be very different from someone logging on in a public space once a month.
But the dominant trend globally — and across all regions — is that more people are coming online every year. It’s a technology that’s moving incredibly fast.
How much do people value leisure?
Free time is important to most people around the world.
As shown on this chart, in many countries, leisure is important to more than 80% of people. This is based on data from the European Values Study and World Values Survey.
However, the percentage of people who find leisure “very important” varies more. In some countries, it is the majority; in others, it is less than a quarter.
People enjoy their free time, but valuing leisure a lot doesn’t mean people value work less or work fewer hours. In countries such as Nigeria, Mexico, and Indonesia, people put a high value on both these aspects of their lives.
The global malaria death rate increased for the first time in 20 years due to COVID-19
The death rate from malaria has gradually decreased since 2004, but disruption to healthcare programs caused by the COVID-19 pandemic caused a sudden increase in death rates in 2020 and 2021.
According to the latest Global Burden of Disease Study — published earlier this year by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) — the age-standardized death rate from malaria was 14.8 deaths per 100,000 in 2004 and had fallen by almost 40% in 2019, to 9.3 deaths per 100,000.
However, in 2020, it increased by around 12% to 10.3 deaths per 100,000, equivalent to around 80,000 additional deaths. Estimates from the World Health Organization also show a similar increase.
This increase is largely attributed to disruptions in malaria prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. The increase was most noticeable in Africa, where IHME estimates that around 95% of malaria deaths occur.
Life expectancy is lower in the United States than in other high-income countries
The world has seen big gains in life expectancy in recent decades, yet the United States increasingly lags behind peer countries.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the period life expectancy in the US was two years lower than the average for high-income countries, according to data from the UN World Population Prospects.
Healthcare spending as a share of GDP is much higher in the United States than in peer nations. This raises questions about equality in access to care, affordability, and the overall efficiency of the US healthcare system.
Other lifestyle and societal factors are also likely to play a role: the US, for example, has seen a surge in drug-related deaths in recent years as a result of the opioid crisis.
India now consumes more coal than Europe and North America combined
According to the most recent data from the Energy Institute’s Statistical Review of World Energy, India now consumes more coal than the continents of Europe and North America combined.
The chart shows this was not the case until recently. Coal consumption in Europe and North America was high for a long time but has significantly decreased in recent decades. At the same time, India’s consumption has steadily increased.
India has industrialized and is growing rapidly. It has a huge demand for cheap energy, and the country’s abundant coal reserves are being used to meet it.
On a per-capita basis, coal consumption in India has only just passed levels in either region. That’s after centuries of higher consumption in North America and Europe.
Explore our detailed data on energy production and sources, country by country →
Young people are less likely to vote than older people — often considerably so
In many countries, there are large differences in voter turnout between young and older people. The chart shows the data for recent national elections in four countries.
In the 2022 French elections, 76% of those aged 18–24 voted, while 92% of people aged 50–59 did — a difference of 16 percentage points.
We see the same pattern in the UK and the US. Only slightly more than half of young people voted in their 2019 and 2020 elections, while around three out of four older people did.
This data comes from post-election surveys by Insee, the British Election Study, the US Census Bureau, and the Federal Returning Officer of Germany.
The United States has, by far, the highest death rate from opioids
Death rates from illicit drugs are the highest in the United States. This is largely the result of a steep rise in opioid deaths in recent years.
This map shows death rates from opioid overdoses, measured as the number of deaths per 100,000 people in each country’s population. This data comes from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation’s latest Global Burden of Disease study.
In 2021, the United States had, by far, the highest death rate from opioids, with 15.4 deaths per 100,000 people each year. Second behind it was Canada, with 6.9 deaths per 100,000. Several European countries and Russia counted between 3 and 4 deaths per 100,000.
This is not only the case for opioids: the US also has the highest death rate from amphetamine and cocaine overdoses.
China now uses about the same amount of energy per person as the European Union
Energy demand in China has increased rapidly over the last few decades due to rising incomes and industrialization.
The country now uses about the same amount of energy per person as the European Union. You can see this in this chart, with new data from the Energy Institute’s Statistical Review of World Energy.
This measure of primary energy is based on the substitution method, which tries to account for the inefficiencies of fossil fuels compared to renewables.
Note that this does not account for energy embedded in traded goods, so some of this increase in China has come from producing goods exported to other countries.
We have just updated our energy data based on the latest release →
More countries have legalized same-sex marriage, but others have explicitly banned it
While some countries have granted more rights to LGBT+ people, others are moving in the opposite direction.
The chart, based on data from researcher Kristopher Velasco, shows that five countries had an explicit ban on same-sex marriage in 1991. Their laws did not just say nothing about same-sex marriage; they had laws that made it explicitly illegal.
By 2019, this number had increased to 37 countries, concentrated in Eastern Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa.
These marriage bans have happened while a similar number of countries have legalized same-sex marriage.
In this way, LGBT+ rights have become more polarized: some countries have introduced progressive laws, while others have become more regressive.
Indoor air pollution causes over three million premature deaths every year
Most of the world's poorest people still rely on solid fuels — such as crop waste, dung, wood, and charcoal — for cooking and heating.
These fuels cause damaging air pollution in households when they’re burned.
According to estimates from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, indoor air pollution prematurely kills more than three million people each year.
As shown on the chart, deaths from indoor pollution are falling as more people get access to cleaner cooking fuels. Improving access to clean energy could prevent many more early deaths.
Funding to study neglected tropical diseases and develop new technologies is very limited
This chart shows the amount of annual funding for research and development (R&D) to understand, treat, and develop technologies against neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). This data comes from Policy Cures Research’s G-FINDER project.
Less than $100 million is spent on R&D for most NTDs, despite millions of people being affected by these diseases — which include dengue, leishmaniasis, and trachoma.
Without funding, it’s very difficult to develop new medicines, vaccines, and technologies to reduce suffering and disability for the millions of people affected by these diseases.
We know that effective funding works. Large public health initiatives have helped fund research against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and COVID-19 and have saved millions of lives.
People’s self-reported life satisfaction varies widely across countries
How satisfied are people with their lives? Answering this question can give us important insights into what matters to people and the circumstances that lead to a fulfilled life.
The World Happiness Report has published data on life satisfaction — based on the Gallup World Poll — since 2012 and covers more than 140 countries worldwide. We have just updated our charts with the latest data.
It measures life satisfaction by asking people to rate their lives on a ladder from 0 to 10, where their worst possible life is 0 and their best possible life is 10.
The resulting score is averaged over the last three years to focus on longer-term shifts.
Despite drastic experiences like the COVID-19 pandemic, overall life satisfaction remains remarkably consistent globally. We can also observe correlations with other measures of well-being: healthier and richer countries tend to have higher average life satisfaction scores.
COVID-19 was the third largest cause of death in 2021
According to the latest Global Burden of Disease Study — published last month by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) — COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death in 2021, after cardiovascular diseases and cancer.
These estimates suggest that COVID-19 was responsible for around eight million deaths in 2021. In many countries across South America and sub-Saharan Africa, the IHME reports that it was the leading cause of death.
Global improvements in healthcare have led to a steady reduction in the death rate from infectious diseases in recent decades, but the COVID-19 pandemic has reversed this trend.
How much of national income goes to the richest 1%?
Globally, there are large differences in the estimated share of income received by the richest 1% of the population. In Norway and Slovakia, it’s 7%; 27% in Mexico, and 31% in Mozambique and the Central African Republic.
You might expect these numbers to be strongly correlated to a country's level of economic development. But this isn't always the case. In the United States, for example, 1% of its population takes home 21% of national income. This is relatively high globally.
The data comes from the World Inequality Database, and we just updated our charts with their latest data. The data above is based on income before taxes and benefits, but after-tax incomes show a broadly similar inequality map.
The ozone hole over the Antarctic grew rapidly in the 1980s, but stopped growing in the late 1990s
The ozone hole over Antarctica was growing rapidly throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, as the data in the chart shows. At its largest, the ozone hole was more than 25 million square kilometers — slightly bigger than the size of Sub-Saharan Africa.
The earth’s ozone layer is important as the ozone absorbs most of the sun’s ultraviolet radiation, and helps to keep Earth habitable. Human emissions of ozone-depleting substances — mostly chlorofluorocarbons — were breaking down ozone high in the atmosphere.
But in 1987, the world agreed to phase out these ozone-depleting substances by signing the Montreal Protocol. Since then, emissions have fallen close to zero.
As a consequence, the ozone hole stopped growing in the late 1990s. It will take decades to recover fully, but it’s slowly starting to rebuild.
Family is very important to people around the world
Most people agree that family is very important, no matter where they live.
Using data from the European Values Study and World Values Survey, the chart shows that a large majority of people worldwide declare family to be important in their lives. This share is above 80% in every country except six.
Only a small percentage of people say they find family “not very important” or “not important at all”.
Despite our disagreements, we should remember how much people across countries and cultures agree on what truly matters to them.
Coal power is dying in Western Europe
Coal dominated Europe's electricity mix over the 20th century, but it is quickly dying in many countries in the 21st.
The chart shows the share of electricity that comes from coal for a range of countries in Western Europe. The data comes from Ember.
Transitioning away from coal has helped reduce carbon emissions and local air pollutants.
Extreme poverty, though lower than in the past, is still very high in Sub-Saharan Africa
The United Nations’ first Sustainable Development Goal is to “end poverty in all its forms everywhere” by 2030. The world is still very far away from this goal.
The data from the World Bank shows that in 1990, 55% of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa and 65% in East Asia and the Pacific lived in these conditions — broadly similar figures. But the most recent figures were 37% in Sub-Saharan Africa and 1% in East Asia and the Pacific.
The United Nations focuses on “extreme poverty” in its Sustainable Development Goals agenda. They define this as living with less than $2.15 per day. This figure represents what $2.15 could buy you in the United States in 2017 prices; it is adjusted for inflation and cost of living differences between countries.
Human rights have improved in all world regions over the last century
Human rights are much better protected in all world regions than a century ago, according to data by Varieties of Democracy.
This recently updated chart shows an index that captures human rights. The index ranges from 0 (least rights) to 1 (most). As you can see, every world region scored significantly higher in 2023 than 100 years ago.
Although progress has not been steady, and there have been setbacks — including in recent years — the overall improvements have been substantial. These trends remain when giving more weight to countries with larger populations.
While progress has been made in all world regions, there are still big disparities across them, with Africa and Asia lagging behind. And the strong protections on other continents show that further global progress is possible.
Solar panel prices have fallen by around 20% every time global capacity doubled
One of the most transformative changes in technology over the last few decades has been the massive drop in the cost of clean energy. Solar photovoltaic costs have fallen by 90% in the last decade, onshore wind by 70%, and batteries by more than 90%.
These technologies have followed a “learning curve” called Wright’s Law. This states that the cost of technology falls consistently as the cumulative production of that technology increases.
The chart shows the perfect example of this for solar power. This data comes from the International Renewable Agency, Greg Nemet, and Doyne Farmer & François Lafond.
On the horizontal axis, we have the cumulative installed capacity of solar panels, and on the vertical axis, the cost. Both are measured on logarithmic scales, and the trend follows a straight line. That means the fall in cost has been exponential.
Costs have fallen by around 20% every time the global cumulative capacity doubles. Over four decades, solar power has transformed from one of the most expensive electricity sources to the cheapest in many countries.
Learning curves: What does it mean for a technology to follow Wright’s Law?
Technologies that follow Wright’s Law get cheaper at a consistent rate, as the cumulative production of that technology increases.