Our World in Data

📊 Data update: Are Americans worried about AI taking their jobs? As artificial intelligence advances rapidly, how are Americans’ attitudes about it changing? Are they becoming more concerned about automation, or less? Answering these questions is harder than it might seem. Long-run, comparable opinion data on AI is rare. Most surveys only provide a snapshot at a single point in time, making it hard to track meaningful changes in public sentiment. Two recurring surveys from YouGov, a UK-based polling and market research firm, are among the few sources that let us study these trends over time. One survey, shown in the chart here, asks working American adults how worried they are about their jobs being automated. The other asks Americans whether robots will ever surpass human intelligence. Our colleague Veronika Samborska recently updated both charts with the latest releases from YouGov. Both surveys are updated twice a year, with the next release expected around mid-2026. Explore the updated data in our interactive charts: https://lnkd.in/e7qYcGeK

China’s Great Leap Forward caused a dramatic spike in child deaths— Child mortality rates in China have fallen from more than 20% in 1950 to less than 1% today. But this steady progress was interrupted in the late 1950s during the “Great Leap Forward”. This was China’s national plan to industrialize rapidly, but it resulted in widespread famine and economic turmoil. As the chart shows, child mortality rates spiked in China over this period, with up to one in three children dying before reaching the age of five. This change was so dramatic that it is also clearly visible in the global trend. This data comes from the UN’s World Population Prospects. (This Data Insight was written by Hannah Ritchie and Pablo Arriagada.) Explore child mortality for all countries in our interactive chart: https://lnkd.in/eK6TERri

📊 Data update: How much revenue do governments collect, and where does it come from? Governments fund public services — from healthcare and education to infrastructure and defense — largely through taxation. But how much tax revenue countries collect varies widely, as the chart shows. Here, it's expressed as a share of GDP to allow comparison across countries of different sizes. In some countries, like Bangladesh and Ethiopia, tax revenue is less than 10% of GDP. In others, like Italy and France, it’s more than 40%. Understanding how governments raise revenue is key to understanding fiscal policy, state capacity, and the relationship between taxation and development. The UNU-WIDER Government Revenue Dataset is one of the most comprehensive cross-country datasets on government revenue composition. Our colleague Pablo Arriagada recently updated our charts with the latest release, which now covers 198 countries and territories from 1980 to 2023. Explore all of the updated data in our interactive charts: https://lnkd.in/ejAKz6nv

📊 Data update: There are now nearly 800 million active mobile money accounts in the world— You probably use a bank account every day without thinking about it — to buy groceries, pay a bill, or receive your salary. But for more than a billion people worldwide, transactions only happen with cash — no easy way to send or receive money remotely, and a constant risk of loss or theft. Mobile money is changing this. Unlike banking apps or services like Venmo, it doesn't require a bank account, smartphone, or internet. People make payments and receive deposits by simply dialling a short code on a basic mobile phone. This technology has spread rapidly, especially across Sub-Saharan Africa, where hundreds of millions of people now rely on it. You can see this in the chart, which our colleague Veronika Samborska recently updated with the latest release of the Global Mobile Money Dataset from the GSM Association (GSMA). The GSMA has tracked mobile money data since 2009. The data now extends through 2024. You can read more about mobile money and how it's expanding financial access and changing lives in our article. There you can also explore the interactive version of this chart. https://lnkd.in/e68JUtuy

Estimates suggest that 45% of abortions globally are unsafe — but this varies widely across regions. Around 4 in 10 women worldwide live in countries where abortion is illegal or highly restricted. But these bans do not stop abortions completely; many women still get them, but in unsafe and unsanitary conditions. A study published in The Lancet estimated that 45% of abortions globally are unsafe. In some regions, the share is estimated to be around three-quarters. You can see this in the chart. This data is around ten years old, but represents the latest estimates available (suggesting that this topic gets very little attention). Unsafe abortions dramatically increase the health risks for women. Safe abortions have very low mortality rates, typically below 1 death per 100,000 abortions. In regions where the majority of abortions are unsafe, mortality rates can be several hundred times higher; in Western and Middle Africa, around 1 in 200 abortions result in the woman dying. It’s estimated that approximately 8% of maternal deaths in the world are caused by unsafe abortions. That’s 23,000 women every year. (This Data Insight was written by Hannah Ritchie.) Read more about the human cost of unsafe abortions in Hannah’s recent article: https://lnkd.in/eDB5tinv

Albert Einstein reshaped our understanding of the universe. But what would his chances have been if he'd been born in the Central African Republic, one of the world's poorest countries? And what could the world's poorest children grow up to be if they had his circumstances? Talent is everywhere. Opportunity is not. We are all losing out because of this. The map shows the global distribution of research and development, here given as the number of R&D researchers per million people. In some countries, like South Korea, Singapore, and the US, there are thousands. In some of the poorest countries, almost none. There is a strong correlation between economic development and research & development. If all countries in the world had the same concentration of researchers as rich countries, there would be around three times as many researchers in the world. We would all benefit from this. Beyond their private returns, big insights and discoveries can benefit society as a whole. The very best ideas — think about penicillin, synthetic fertilizers, or vaccines — benefit every person on the planet. Learn more — including what you can do to help — in Max Roser’s article: https://lnkd.in/ff-rkrw

What share of income goes to the richest 1% in your country? How about the richest 10% or 0.1%? How has that changed over time? The World Inequality Database (WID) is the leading source for answering questions about incomes and wealth at the very top of the distribution. Standard household surveys tend to undercount incomes at the top — the wealthiest are harder to reach, less likely to respond, and more likely to underreport. The WID addresses this by combining surveys with tax records and national accounts, giving a more complete picture of how income and wealth are distributed across the population. Built by an international network of over a hundred researchers, the WID provides data for countries around the world, with some series going back over a century. Our colleague Pablo Arriagada recently updated our charts with the latest WID data. Explore all of the updated data in our interactive charts: https://lnkd.in/eSgGRp3x

📊 Data update: Where are people being forced from their homes because of conflict or disaster? A record 83 million people globally were living in internal displacement at the end of 2024 — forced from their homes by conflict, violence, or natural disasters, but remaining within their own country's borders. Unlike refugees, who cross international borders, internally displaced people are often harder to track and don't show up in all migration statistics. Our colleague Tuna Acisu recently updated around 20 of our charts with the latest data from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC). The data covers disaster-related displacements since 2008 and conflict-related displacements since 2009, with global coverage across all countries. This data helps us better understand the human impact of natural disasters, conflicts, and violence — and helps NGOs and governments support those who have been displaced. See the updated data in our Migration, Refugees, and Asylum Seekers Data Explorer: https://lnkd.in/ejJkqXAj

Mental health care is scarce everywhere — but in poor countries, it barely exists. Depression, anxiety, and other mental health problems are common everywhere. They are not confined to any particular income level. But access to care is rare. In much of the world, people who struggle with their mental health have almost no psychologists or psychiatrists to turn to. Mental health care is scarce in all places, but it is much scarcer in poor countries. Governments in high-income countries spend about $66 per person per year on mental health care, as the chart shows. In low-income countries, that figure is $0.04. This gap in spending reflects a gap in people. As the WHO’s latest Mental Health Atlas highlights, there is roughly one psychiatrist per million people in low-income countries. High-income countries have 70 times more. A recent study in the Lancet Psychiatry estimated that globally, only 9% of people with major depressive disorder receive a “minimally adequate treatment”. In high-income countries, it is 27%; in Sub-Saharan Africa, just 2%. Hundreds of millions of people in poorer countries live with treatable conditions and have no access to a psychologist or psychiatrist. It is one of the largest gaps in global health — and one that receives remarkably little attention or funding. There are efforts to close this gap without waiting for the workforce to catch up. One approach is to train lay counsellors — people without formal clinical qualifications who learn to provide psychological support. Randomized trials in India and Zimbabwe have shown this can be effective for depression. Another approach is to use technology: apps and, increasingly, AI-based tools that can extend the reach of limited clinical expertise. These are not substitutes for a functioning mental health system, but in places where that system barely exists, they offer a starting point. (This Data Insight was written by Max Roser.) Read more on our page on mental health: https://lnkd.in/gmPg_je

✍️ New article: Battery costs have declined by 99% in the last three decades, making electrified transport a reality— Over 20 million electric cars were sold globally in 2025 — some for as little as $10,000. Even just two decades ago, that would have been impossible. The reason it's possible now? Batteries have gotten *much* cheaper. In 1991, lithium-ion battery cells cost around $9,200 per kilowatt-hour. By 2024, that had fallen to just $78 — a decline of more than 99%. You can see this in the chart. To put that in perspective: the battery cells in a standard electric car today cost around $5,000. In 1991, those same cells would have cost nearly $600,000. There was no single breakthrough behind this. Batteries follow a “learning curve”: as cumulative production grows, thousands of small improvements in chemistry, manufacturing, and supply chains drive prices down. Since 1998, every time global cumulative battery production doubled, the price dropped by roughly 19%. Early progress was driven by consumer electronics — phones and laptops — before the technology became viable for cars, buses, and larger energy storage. Energy density has also more than tripled since the 1990s, meaning batteries can now store far more energy for their volume. The half-a-million-dollar battery was never going to transform transport. The $5,000 battery is. Read more in the new article by Hannah Ritchie: https://lnkd.in/dyXvNiD