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Economic growth is easy to understand: it means that people have access to goods and services of increasing quantity and quality.

What is hard, however, is to measure economic growth. This chart shows two ways of doing this for US growth over the past 160 years.

The purple lines represent a straightforward approach: each line tracks the share of households with access to one specific good or service. Starting from the top, you see the rising provision of basic infrastructure like running water, flush toilets, and electric power. You can also see the increasing availability of communication technology: radios, TVs, the Internet, and mobile phones. And further down, you see the rise of technologies that reduced work at home: vacuum cleaners, washing machines, dryers, and dishwashers.

This approach is very concrete; it shows practical ways in which the production and consumption of specific goods increased over time. The downside is that it only captures a limited number of particular goods. Millions of goods and services are produced and consumed, and most are not recorded with such precision.

A way to measure how people’s access to the full range of goods and services changes is to measure people’s incomes. This way of measuring growth is shown in the top left panel. The data on average income, here measured by GDP per capita, tells us that the average American was 13 times poorer in 1860 than in 2022 (adjusted for inflation).

These two ways of measuring economic growth have pros and cons: one is concrete but not comprehensive, the other is comprehensive but quite abstract. If we want to understand what growth means for our societies, I find it helpful to combine them both.

If you want to know more about this — and see how the inequality of incomes can be factored in — you can read my article: “What is economic growth? And why is it so important?” →

When I was born in the 1990s, the average carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the United Kingdom were about six times higher than in China, but these trends have converged in my lifetime.

You can see this in the chart: in 2022, China’s per capita emissions matched those in the UK.

Once a country that ran on coal, the UK has closed its last coal plant. This has been the main driver of its emissions decline.

Meanwhile, rapid economic growth, powered mainly by coal, has ramped up emissions in China.

These emission numbers are adjusted for trade. Based on domestic production, China’s per capita emissions are much higher than the UK's. But since China is a net exporter of goods (and emissions) and the UK is a net importer, the gap closes when we adjust for consumption.

These emissions are based on domestic consumption and do not include international aviation or shipping, where Brits are likely to emit more.

There are many ways to compare national contributions to climate change; explore them here →

Smokers are about 21 times more likely to die from lung cancer than people who never smoked, and they face increased risks from over a dozen other diseases. I know people who died from smoking: you probably do too.

In 2008, the World Health Organization created a set of tobacco control policies with different tiers, the highest of which are considered “best practices” — they are listed on the chart.

The chart also shows the share of the global population living in countries that had enacted these policies as of 2007 and 2024.

What surprised me is how recent most of these policies still are. In 2007, only a tiny share of the global population benefited from these policies. Since then, coverage has increased across all these measures, but most of them still reach less than half of the world's population.

What is the share of taxes on the retail price of a pack of cigarettes? See the data for each country →

For most of history, almost everyone everywhere was very poor. Hunger was common, half of the children died, and, as the chart shows, average incomes were low across all regions.

The chart also shows how people’s incomes have changed over the last two centuries. The chart highlights a stark divergence: while average incomes in every region have increased, the pace of this growth has varied enormously. Western Europe and the “Western Offshoots” (like the US and Australia) experienced early and sustained economic growth. Meanwhile, Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia grew much more slowly.

Two hundred years ago, people in all regions were similarly poor. Today, the average incomes of people in Australia, the US, or Denmark are more than 15 times higher than those in Sub-Saharan Africa.

I wrote an article on how economic growth is possible and why it is important: “What is economic growth?” →

Norway is leading the way in the transition from petrol to electric cars. Almost every new car sold in Norway is electric. Hardly anyone buys a combustion engine car anymore.

However, data on new car sales doesn’t tell us about the distribution of cars on the road. There is a lag between sales and stocks, because people can hold on to their existing petrol and diesel cars for as much as a decade or more.

But after years of electric cars dominating the market, one-third of cars in use in Norway are now electric. The chart shows this growth.

The share was only 12% five years earlier, which shows that this transition can happen relatively quickly.

As the global leader, Norway’s experiences can help to inform other countries on factors like charging networks, grid management, and the impacts of electric car uptake on emissions and air quality.

See how common electric cars are in other countries across the world →

The Agricultural Revolution — the transition from hunting and gathering to farming — didn’t end hunger. That’s because more food didn’t mean more per person: it meant more people.

The English cleric Thomas Malthus predicted this would continue forever: food production would always be outpaced by population growth, making lasting progress against hunger impossible.

But at least since the mid-20th century, England has left mass hunger behind. How was this possible? How did English farmers prove Malthus wrong?

The chart shows one central part of the answer. For centuries, cereal yields in England — for staples like wheat and barley — were stuck at about 0.6 tonnes per hectare. That means farmers needed a plot of 100 meters by 100 meters to grow 600 kilograms of cereals per year. Hunger was widespread.

But this changed from the 17th century onward, accelerating a hundred years ago. In a dramatic transformation known as the Second Agricultural Revolution, farmers found ways to grow much more food on the same land.

Today, after four centuries of rising productivity, English farmers are growing about ten times more food on the same land than in the past. This has made it possible to increase food production faster than population growth, breaking England out of the “Malthusian Trap”.

The chart also shows that the world as a whole is changing in the same direction. Global average yields have tripled in the last six decades. Today, yields are already about five times higher than in England in the past. If yields continue to follow this trajectory, it would bring us much closer to the end of global hunger, while also sparing land for nature.

My colleague Hannah Ritchie wrote about how climate change might affect crop yields in the future →

It’s hard to imagine many things that are more terrifying than your baby contracting HIV. This is the reality for around 130,000 families every year.

Just a few decades ago, this figure was over half a million. Most of these infections were passed on from mothers who had HIV themselves.

But the introduction of anti-retroviral (ART) drugs and other interventions has meant that most infections can be prevented. If the mother takes ART during pregnancy, it dramatically reduces the risk of passing on HIV. In some cases, giving ART to the baby in the first few weeks of life can help too.

In the chart, you can see this decline in new HIV infections in children. On top, you can see the huge number of cases estimated to have been averted thanks to these interventions; they amount to almost a quarter of a million cases every year.

Explore more of our work on HIV/AIDS in adults and children →

Global trade has never been a bigger slice of the world economy. However, China, the country that most people think of as the export giant, has seen a decline in its trade-to-GDP ratio in the last 15 years.

The chart shows China’s trade in goods and services as a share of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In 1970, it was just 5%. Following Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms, which opened China to market forces and international trade, this figure soared to 64% in 2006. But since then, it has fallen considerably, reaching 37% in 2023 — still far higher than before the 1990s. China's exports have grown in dollar terms, but its economy has expanded even faster, making trade a shrinking share of the whole.

While the 2008 financial crisis disrupted global trade, China’s trajectory also reflects the increase in domestic demand for its products. The decline in the trade-to-GDP ratio since 2006 reflects a shift from export-led growth toward domestic consumption, not a return to pre-reform levels. For years, Chinese officials have advocated rebalancing the economy away from export dependence and toward one driven by domestic consumption. A rising middle class now buys more of what China produces, reducing its reliance on international markets.

Explore more data on our Trade and Globalization page →

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 →

In the late 1990s, Sri Lanka had one of the highest suicide rates in the world: three times the global average and four times the rate in countries like the United States or the United Kingdom.

The most frequent method of suicide was self-poisoning, particularly from pesticides.

But since then, suicide rates have fallen by almost two-thirds. You can see this in the chart.

The biggest driver of this improvement was the banning of particularly toxic pesticides. Two highly hazardous pesticides were initially banned in 1984, and five more were banned in 1995. This slowed the growth in suicide rates, and the trend eventually turned the corner into a strong decline.

Sri Lanka’s experience in the last few decades makes it clear that suicide rates are not “fixed” at a particular level, and there are things that can be done to reduce them.

Suicide rates have declined in many countries over decades: read our insight →

How many hours have you used electricity today? For me, it’s probably all of them — from charging my phone overnight to working on my laptop, exercising with my watch, and listening to music through my earphones. It's so normal that I can't imagine life without it.

But life without electricity is a reality for millions in Sub-Saharan Africa. This map shows the share of people with access to electricity across the region. This is defined as having a source that can provide basic lighting, charge a phone, or power a radio for just 4 hours daily.

Look at the countries in dark red: in Chad, only 12% of people have access. In the Democratic Republic of Congo — a country of over 100 million people — it's just 22%. Overall, 85% of people worldwide who lack access to electricity now live in Sub-Saharan Africa.

There are bright spots, though. Countries like Kenya, where more than three-quarters of people now have electricity, show that progress in the region is possible.

Explore more data on access to electricity →

Most of us have heard that smoking damages the lungs. The chart drives this home: in the US, men who smoke are around 21 times more likely to die from lung cancer than men who have never smoked.

But the damage doesn’t stop there: smoking also increases the risk of other cancers, including mouth, throat, bladder and pancreatic cancer, in addition to other health conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), heart disease, and diabetes.

Why does one habit harm so many organs? Cigarettes carry a mixture of carcinogens that reach — and damage — tissues throughout the body. Smoking also injures blood vessels, fuels inflammation, and makes it easier for tumors to spread.

Because a single behavior poses so many risks, cutting smoking rates has been one of the most powerful tools to save lives and improve public health.

Explore more data and research on smoking on our dedicated page →

In 1990, one in four newborns in Malawi died before their fifth birthday.

At that time, the average number of births per woman was almost seven. This meant that many families experienced the tragedy of losing a child.

But in recent decades, Malawi has made incredible progress. As you can see in the chart, the child mortality rate has dropped to 1 in 25 children — an 84% reduction.

Many factors have contributed to this decline. The expansion of antenatal care and the attendance of skilled health professionals at birth have been crucial in saving newborns in the earliest days of life. Increasing vaccination rates, distributing insecticide-treated bed nets and antimalarials, and programs to stop the transmission of HIV have all reduced the risks of dying in infancy.

Read more about the role that vaccines have played in reducing child mortality →

Italy has become much safer over the last thirty years.

In the early 1990s, there were around 3 homicides per 100,000 people every year. That was one of the highest rates in Europe.

Since then, rates have fallen by more than 80%. As you can see in the chart, they have been around 0.5 per 100,000 in recent years. That now makes Italy safer than many of its European neighbours.

Mafia-related homicides dropped dramatically in the 1990s following intensified efforts from the Italian government. Some of this organized crime may have also shifted from violent acts towards financial and “white collar” crime.

While estimates can vary across data sources, for Italy, they show strong agreement →

If you live in the same country as your family, you don’t usually have to pay a fee when you send them money. International migrants face a harsher reality: they pay hefty transaction costs when supporting family back home. Globally, the average fee in 2023 was 6.3%, more than double the UN Sustainable Development Goal's target of getting this down to 3%.

This may not sound like much, but migrants send large amounts home to help with schooling, medical bills, house maintenance, and food. The total sum was nearly three times larger than global foreign aid in 2023. (Here, foreign aid consists of net development assistance from national governments and private philanthropy that meets the necessary conditions.)

Although 6.3% might seem modest, when applied to large volumes of money, these transfer fees amount to tens of billions of dollars.

The chart shows that migrants lost $51 billion in transaction fees in 2023, which is not far from the $66 billion the US gave as foreign aid. That's $51 billion paid by migrants but never received by their families.

With the new US administration projected to cut aid by more than half, aid experts from the Center for Global Development suggest reducing fees could help fill some of the gap. They recommend promoting cheaper transfer options, increasing competition between services, and linking banking systems across countries.

While money sent home by migrants isn’t as targeted to vulnerable groups as aid, most of it flows directly to families in low- and middle-income countries who can use it for what they need most.

Read more about money sent home by migrants →