Daily Data Insights
Bite-sized insights on how the world is changing, published every weekday.
September 13, 2024
Chile produced 9.4% of its primary energy from solar in 2023 — the highest in any country that year
According to the Energy Institute’s Statistical Review of World Energy, in 2023, Chile produced 9.4% of its primary energy from solar sources, the highest share in any country. When we look at electricity alone, solar produced 20% of the total.
This marks a trend of continued year-on-year growth in a country that, just a decade earlier, generated almost no electricity from solar.
Chile's growth has been faster than that of other solar champions like Spain and Australia, where the adoption of these technologies started earlier.
Much of Chile's solar energy is captured in the Atacama Desert. This region, in Northern Chile, receives the highest level of sunlight exposure in the world and is home to Latin America’s first solar thermal plant.
Explore data on energy production and sources, country by country →
September 12, 2024
Venezuelan migration: a major demographic shift in South America
The chart shows net migration trends for Venezuela, Peru, Chile, and Colombia from 1950 to 2023. This is the net difference between immigrants coming into a country and emigrants leaving. This data published by the UN World Population Prospects shows how significant this demographic event is in the region’s recent history.
Starting around 2015, Venezuela's net migration dropped sharply, with a record 1.36 million people emigrating in 2018. The timing of this shift, accelerating from 2015 onwards, coincides with Venezuela's worsening economic and political instability.
At the same time, wealthier countries like Peru, Chile, and Colombia experienced significant increases in net migration, which suggests they have become major destinations for Venezuelan migrants. This trend is even clearer when visualizing where immigrants from Venezuela moved to.
September 11, 2024
Less than 60% of the world has access to safe sanitation
Unsafe sanitation is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths each year. It increases the risk of many fatal diseases, including cholera, diarrhea, dysentery, hepatitis A, typhoid, and polio.
Unfortunately, over 40% of the world does not have access to safe sanitation facilities. This is based on estimates from the WHO/UNICEF’s Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene.
The chart shows the share of the global population that has access to safe sanitation over time. While rates have increased, particularly over the last decade, they still fall far short of the UN’s target of universal access in 2030.
Increasing access to safe sanitation would save many lives from preventable infectious diseases.
September 10, 2024
Public social spending has increased very substantially in the 20th century
The chart shows that in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, governments’ social spending amounted to very little. Countries spent, at most, 1 to 2% of their national income on public social services.
This changed significantly over the 20th century: public social spending in wealthy countries now amounts to between 15% and 30% of national income.
The biggest reasons for this increase are higher expenditure on healthcare and education.
This data comes from the OECD and Peter Lindert’s history of social spending.
September 09, 2024
COVID-19 raised respiratory infection death rates to levels not seen in many decades
The chart shows the death rates from respiratory infections in countries since 1950.
Data comes from the WHO Mortality Database, which compiles data reported by each country. The data typically comes with a few years of delay since it needs to be standardized.
It helps us to look back and see the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic from a historical perspective.
As you can see, there has been a long-run decline in respiratory infection death rates. This is due to improved sanitation, healthcare, and vaccination against diseases such as influenza, tuberculosis, and pertussis.
But during the pandemic, death rates from respiratory infections surged massively due to COVID-19 and reached levels not seen in many decades.
Explore the data on respiratory infection death rates for other countries →
September 06, 2024
Rail travel is more prevalent in Japan than in Western Europe, and much more than in the United States
The chart shows how much people rely on rail versus road transport in 2021. The data comes from the OECD, and we recently updated our charts with the latest release.
Japan stands out with 28% of passenger kilometers traveled by rail. This contrasts sharply with New Zealand and the United States, where rail accounts for only 1.4% and 0.25% of passenger kilometers, respectively.
In Western European countries, rail transport is still in the minority, but less so. In France, 10% of passenger kilometers are traveled by rail, 6.4% in Germany, and 5% in the United Kingdom.
Countries with well-developed rail networks and high usage also tend to have lower domestic transport-related CO2 emissions.
Explore passenger kilometers traveled by road and rail in other countries →
September 05, 2024
Vaccines accounted for 40% of the decline in infant mortality over the last 50 years
Infant mortality rates have plummeted over the last 50 years. Globally, they’ve fallen by over two-thirds, from around 10% in 1974 to less than 3% today.
A recent study — published in The Lancet by Andrew Shattock and an international team of researchers — estimates that increased access to crucial vaccines means that infant mortality rates are 40% lower than they would be in a world without vaccines.
The chart shows the actual reduction in infant mortality rates with vaccination (in blue) and the researchers’ estimates for a hypothetical scenario in which vaccines wouldn’t have been rolled out (in red).
Based on these figures, vaccines are estimated to have saved 150 million children over the last 50 years. Vaccinations accounted for 40% of that decline.
Read our article on the role of vaccination in reducing infant mortality →
September 04, 2024
Working hours in wealthy countries have been reduced by half over the last 150 years
The chart shows that the average worker in wealthy countries now works only about half as many hours per year as in the late 19th century.
Based on data from economic historians Michael Huberman and Chris Minns, the average worker used to work between 2,700 and 3,500 hours per year, which is about 50 to 70 hours each week.
Recently, using data from the Penn World Table, workers worked about half that amount, between 1,300 and 1,800 hours a year, or about 25 to 35 hours a week.
This decrease has come from working fewer hours each day, fewer days each week, and fewer weeks each year.
Read more in our article on whether we are working more than ever →
September 03, 2024
HIV antiretroviral therapy saves over a million lives each year
Four decades ago, when HIV was first identified, it was an invariably fatal disease: nearly 100% of those infected died, typically within a few years.
The virus spread rapidly around the world — especially in Africa, where almost two million were dying every year by the millennium.
Thankfully, medical advances and global public health efforts have entirely changed this course. Modern antiretroviral therapy is very effective in both treating HIV — returning people with HIV to near-normal life expectancy — and preventing the virus from spreading to others.
The chart above shows this impact based on data from UNAIDS. Over a million people's lives are now saved by antiretroviral therapy each year.
Recent medical advances could take this progress even further.
Read more on how antiretroviral therapy has changed the lives of people with HIV →
September 02, 2024
People in poorer countries get more of their calories from staple crops
Cereals, roots, and tuber crops — such as cassava or potatoes — are some of the cheapest options for getting enough calories. In poorer countries, people get much of their daily energy from these crops.
The chart shows the share of calories that the average person gets from these staples, measured against gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. This data comes from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Bank.
People in some of the world’s poorest countries get two-thirds to three-quarters of their calories from cereals and other staples, compared to around one-third in the richest countries.
This means those on low incomes have less diverse diets and often miss out on key nutrients from legumes, fruit and vegetables, meat and dairy, and other foods.
August 30, 2024
Investment in generative AI has surged recently
Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence that can create various media, including text, images, and music. It learns from existing data to generate novel outputs. Examples include language models like GPT-4 and Claude, which can write essays or answer questions, and image generation models like Midjourney and DALL·E, which can create artwork based on textual descriptions.
In 2023, funding for generative AI soared to $22.4 billion, nearly nine times more than in 2022 and about 25 times the amount from 2019. This surge occurred despite overall investment in AI declining since its 2021 peak.
The data is produced by Quid and made available through the AI Index Report. Quid analyzes investment data from over 8 million companies, using natural language processing to uncover patterns and insights from vast datasets. We have recently updated our charts on Our World in Data with the report's latest edition.
Read more on how investment in AI has been changing over time here →
August 29, 2024
Men are more likely to be homeless in most countries, but there are exceptions
This chart shows the gender breakdown of people affected by homelessness.
In most countries, men tend to be more likely to experience homelessness than women. In many, women make up 20% to 40% of the homeless population.
But this ratio varies a lot by country. In Colombia and Costa Rica, men are much more likely to be affected by homelessness, with only around one in ten being women.
In the United Kingdom and New Zealand, it’s even the opposite: more women experience homelessness than men.
This data comes from the OECD’s Affordable Housing Database and only includes countries that count people experiencing homelessness on a single night of the year.
Explore our updated and expanded topic page on homelessness →
August 28, 2024
Highly active antiretroviral therapy transformed the lives of people with HIV
Over the 1980s and 1990s, the rise in HIV/AIDS deaths seemed unstoppable. Several effective antiretroviral drugs had been developed, but people with HIV still died from the disease because the virus would evolve to evade each drug.
Thankfully, scientists discovered that a combination of drugs could create a significant barrier to HIV’s evolution. This new treatment, highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), was first introduced in 1995 in the United States.
Data from the National Center for Health Statistics shows the massive impact of HAART in the chart. HIV/AIDS mortality dropped steeply after it was introduced.
It profoundly improved the survival of people with HIV and reduced their risk of passing it on to others.
August 27, 2024
The number of identified exoplanets has dramatically increased thanks to the “transit method”
Exoplanets are planets that orbit stars other than the Sun. Their existence was first confirmed in 1992 when astronomers Aleksander Wolszczan and Dale Frail identified two exoplanets orbiting a star located 2,300 light-years from Earth.
As shown in this chart, from 1992 to 2005, scientists discovered two hundred more exoplanets. They primarily used a method called "radial velocity". This technique works by detecting small changes in the color of a star due to the gravitational pull of a planet orbiting it.
But starting in the mid-2000s, the "transit method” vastly accelerated the pace of exoplanet discovery. This method detects tiny dips in a star’s brightness when a planet passes in front of it. This dimming can reveal a planet's presence and provide information about its size and orbit.
As is often the case with technological change, what was once a unique scientific achievement has become a much more frequent occurrence. The advancements in detection methods now allow us to discover hundreds of exoplanets each year.
Adding up all methods of identification, more than 5,500 exoplanets have been found by scientists worldwide, according to data from NASA's Exoplanet Archive.
August 26, 2024
People in richer countries tend to eat more meat
Richer people tend to have more diverse diets. They get a lower share of their calories from staples such as cereals, roots, and tubers and increase their consumption of fruit, vegetables, dairy, and meat.
The chart shows the relationship between meat supply and gross domestic product (GDP) per person. Meat supply — as reported by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations — measures the average quantity of meat available for consumers. It includes how much people ultimately eat and any consumer waste.
There is a strong positive relationship: people in wealthier countries tend to eat more meat per person. This has also meant that as the world has gotten richer, global meat production has increased.
August 23, 2024
Cancer has replaced cardiovascular diseases as the leading cause of death in several wealthy countries
This chart shows the share of reported deaths caused by cardiovascular diseases and cancer since 1950 in Denmark, Australia, the UK, and Canada. This is based on the underlying cause listed on death certificates and comes from the WHO Mortality Database (2024); we recently updated our charts with the latest release.
Fifty years ago, around half of all deaths in these countries were due to cardiovascular diseases. Today, this proportion has dropped to between 20% and 25%. Cancer has become the most common cause of death in many of these countries, even though overall cancer mortality rates have also been declining.
Many factors contribute to these trends, such as declines in smoking and improvements in screening, diagnosis, and monitoring.
These countries are also leading the use of statins, medicines that lower cholesterol, which likely have had a significant effect on reducing heart-related deaths.
Even though fewer people are dying from cardiovascular diseases in some of these wealthy countries, heart disease remains the leading cause of death worldwide.
Read more on the different types of cardiovascular diseases →
August 22, 2024
Drivers of tree cover loss are different in each region
Recent data from Global Forest Watch shows trends in tree cover loss, split by five drivers: forestry, shifting agriculture, and wildfires, which lead to temporary tree cover loss, while commodity-driven deforestation and urbanization often cause permanent deforestation.
This dataset combines time-series data of tree cover loss, estimated from satellite imagery using research by Matthew Hansen and colleagues, with research on the drivers of deforestation by Philip Curtis and colleagues.
The drivers of tree cover loss vary markedly across regions. Wildfires and forestry (logging) are the main drivers of tree cover loss in Europe and North America, with wildfires mainly occurring in Canada and Russia. Tree cover loss from wildfires does not include fire clearing for agriculture.
Commodity-driven deforestation is a key cause in Asia and South America, largely due to trends in Brazil and Indonesia. Shifting agriculture — where trees are cleared so the land can be cultivated temporarily before being abandoned — is the dominant driver of tree cover loss in Africa and a major driver in South America.
Explore the drivers of tree cover loss for all countries and regions →
August 21, 2024
How common is homelessness across the world?
Countries have very different rates of homelessness, according to the OECD’s Affordable Housing Database.
The chart shows that more than 300 out of every 100,000 are reported homeless in France, while it’s fewer than 20 in Finland.
In about half of the countries, more than 100 in every 100,000 people are homeless. That means more than one per thousand people.
There are also differences in types of homelessness. The United States, for example, has relatively high numbers of people living in the streets or public spaces but fewer in temporary accommodations or shelters.
Not all countries on the chart can be directly compared. For example, Japan and Greece only report data on one type of homelessness, so they don’t give a complete picture of the total population affected by homelessness.
Explore our updated and expanded topic page on homelessness →
August 20, 2024
August 2024 has seen a surge in wildfires worldwide, mainly in Africa
The chart shows the weekly area burned by wildfires globally and in Africa from 2012 to 2024. This August saw an abrupt increase in the area burned by wildfires, with most of this rise coming in a single week.
This global weekly burn rate was 64% higher than any previous week during this period. This data comes from the Global Wildfire Information System.
This dramatic rise was mostly driven by severe wildfires in Africa, where approximately 22 million hectares burned in a week, accounting for around 80% of the global burned area.
Two countries have been particularly hard-hit — Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo — where 6% and 2.5% of the total land area have burned in just one week.
August 19, 2024
Many people alive today still recall when smallpox was common
Smallpox was a deadly disease that has been recorded since ancient times. It killed around 30% of those who developed the disease.
In 1980, it became the first disease to be eradicated worldwide. This considerable achievement resulted from centuries of coordinated effort and scientific development.
People were able to fight the virus by developing and refining smallpox vaccines, using quarantine control measures, and applying ring vaccination.
Many countries — in Europe, the former Soviet Union, and many island nations — eliminated smallpox around a century ago. This is shown on the map, whose data was compiled by researchers Frank Fenner and colleagues in 1988.
Smallpox continued to kill in many countries in South Asia, Africa, and South America until the 1970s. It remains a vivid memory for many older people alive today.
Read more about the history of smallpox and its eradication →