Thread by @DinaPomeranz

For the New Year, I'll share a few trends of the past decade.

Since for many longer-term trends, data is not yet available until 2019, I will post the last available 10 years.

Happy New Year!

The share of people in the world who live in extreme poverty (i.e. with less than 1.90 Dollars per day, adjusted for prices), fell by more than half, from 22% to 10%, between 2005-2015:

ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty

The share of people living in extreme poverty fell on all continents.

In East Asia from 19% to 2%, in Sub-Saharan Africa from 51% to 41%:

In the decade from 2005-2015, the share of people with access to improved drinking water increased from 85% to 90% worldwide and from 56% to 66% in low-income countries:

ourworldindata.org/water-access

In the decade from 2007-2017, the share of children dying before the age of 5 fell worldwide by over a third: from 5.9% to 3.6%.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, it fell from 11% to 7.5%.

ourworldindata.org/child-mortality

Still, 15,000 children under 5 die every day. These are the main causes:

Maternal mortality: The share of women expected to die from child birth fell worldwide from 0.77% to 0.56% between 2005 and 2015.

In low income countries, this share fell the most, from 3.66% to 2.35%:

ourworldindata.org/maternal-morta…

In the decade from 2006-2016, the primary school completion rate grew from 86% to 90% worldwide, and the gap between girls and boys almost disappeared:

ourworldindata.org/primary-and-se…

In the last decade, life expectancy rose on all continents:

- Worldwide, it rose by 3 year during these 10 years: from 69.5 to 72.6

- In Africa it rose the most, by over 5 years: from 57.9 to 63.2

- In North America it rose from 78.7 to 79.2

ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy

In the decade from 2005 to 2015, the global population growth rate continued to fall, from 1.24% to 1.14% per year. It is projected to reach close to zero by the end of this century:

ourworldindata.org/world-populati…

Much of the remaining global population growth stems from the larger, younger generations growing up.

The number of new born children in the world is already almost constant:

ourworldindata.org/peak-child

The share of people whom the UN Food and Agriculture Organization(FAO) classifies as undernourished fell from 2006 to 2015, but started increasing somewhat after that. The FAO attributes this to armed conflicts and climate-related factors such as El Niño:

ourworldindata.org/hunger-and-und…

The share of children who have suffered from malnutrition so long that they are too short for their age has continued to fall rapidly:

From 2005 to 2017, it fell
- from 43% to 35% in low-income countries
- from 31% to 22% in middle-income countries

ourworldindata.org/hunger-and-und…

The key issue that can endanger much of the progress the world have achieved in so many areas is climate change.

Global CO2 emissions have continued to rise from 2007-2017 by almost 20%. We are far away from *reducing* CO2 by the required amount.

ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-…

In other areas of environmental concern, the world has seen a lot of progress. E.g. air pollution:

Deaths rates from air pollution have fallen worldwide by almost 1/5th.

ourworldindata.org/air-pollution

The number of oil spills continued to fall: ourworldindata.org/oil-spills

The emission of ozone-depleting substances continued to fall:

ourworldindata.org/ozone-layer

In terms of the number of countries that are democracies, the last decade has seen a stagnation.

After a long period of increase since WWII, including decolonialization & the end of the Cold War, the number of democracies has remained stable since 2008:

ourworldindata.org/democracy

Both the worldwide homicide rate and suicide rate continued to decline in the decade from 2007-2017:

ourworldindata.org/homicides
ourworldindata.org/suicide

Overall, as @MaxCRoser, the founder of the website ourworldindata.org says:

The world is much better than it used to be - The world still has huge problems - The world can become much better

Let's make this next decade count!

Happy New Year!

ourworldindata.org/much-better-aw…