BBC: Hans Rosling: How much do you know about the world?
Be sure to click through to the article and see the 2.5 minute video.
Many people don't know about the enormous progress most countries have made in recent decades - or maybe the media hasn't told them. But with the following five facts everyone can upgrade their world view.
1. Fast population growth is coming to an end
It's a largely untold story - gradually, steadily the demographic forces that drove the global population growth in the 20th Century have shifted. Fifty years ago the world average fertility rate - the number of babies born per woman - was five. Since then, this most important number in demography has dropped to 2.5 - something unprecedented in human history - and fertility is still trending downwards. ...
2. The "developed" and "developing" worlds have gone
... So much has changed, especially in the last decade, that the countries of the world today defy all attempts to classify them into only two groups. So many of the formerly "developing" group of countries have been catching up that the countries now form a continuum. ...
3. People are much healthier
Fifty years ago, the average life expectancy in the world was 60 years. Today it's 70 years. What's more, that average of 60 years in the 1960s masked a huge gap between long lifespans in "developed" and short lifespans in "developing" countries.
But today's average of 70 years applies to the majority of people of the world. ...
4. Girls are getting better education
... The better education of girls is just a first step on the long road to gender equity. But sadly it is also changing the character of gender inequity. Violence against young women and restrictions on their rights to choose how to live their lives are now replacing lack of schooling as the main gender injustice.
5. The end of extreme poverty is in sight
... Economists define it as an income of less than $1.25 per day. In reality, it means that a family cannot be sure from one day to the next that they will have enough to eat. ...
... But the number of people in extreme poverty, according to the World Bank, has fallen from two billion in 1980 to just over one billion today. Though many people in the world still live on a very low income, six out of seven billion are now out of extreme poverty and this is a critical change. ... [Note: There were 4.5 Billion people in 1980. That means the extreme poverty rate has dropped from 45% to 15%.]
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