By Nicholas Kristof of The NY Times. Excerpts:
"2024 appears to have been the year in which the smallest percentage of children died since the dawn of humanity.
For most of history, about half of newborns died as children. As recently as 1950, more than one-quarter did. In 2024, the best guess of United Nations statisticians is that an all-time low of 3.6 percent of children died before the age of 5, a bit lower than in 2023 (which set the previous record).
That is still far too many. But the risk of that worst thing happening has dropped by half over the last quarter-century. Just since 2000, more than 80 million children’s lives have been saved.
Likewise, consider extreme poverty, defined as having less than $2.15 per day, adjusted for inflation. Historically, most human beings lived in extreme poverty, but the share has been plummeting — and in 2024 reached a new low of about 8.5 percent of the world’s people."
"Every day over the past couple of years, roughly 30,000 people moved out of extreme poverty worldwide."
"we’re approaching 90 percent literacy worldwide, and the number of literate people is rising by more than 12 million each year."
"Scientists have newly developed the first antipsychotic medication for schizophrenia in decades, and a vaccine against a form of breast cancer may enter Phase 2 trials this year. And with semaglutide medications, Americans are now becoming thinner, on average, each year rather than fatter, with far-reaching health consequences."
Related posts:
Why 2017 Was the Best Year in Human History (2018)
The World Is Getting Quietly, Relentlessly Better (2019)
The short history of global living conditions and why it matters that we know it (2018)
How Much Has Life Expectancy Improved? (2018)
This Has Been the Best Year Ever (2019)
Some Good Economic News (2013)
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