May 09, 2025
Many previous generations of women in my family would not have been allowed to do the work I do today — even if computers, the Internet, and Our World in Data had existed then. Thankfully, that’s no longer the case where I live: I’ve had the same right to get an education, work, and build a career as my brother.
Unfortunately, that’s not the case everywhere.
The map highlights the countries where women had legal restrictions on their rights to work in formal employment in 2023. All are in the Middle East, North Africa, or Sub-Saharan Africa.
These restrictions can include the need for permission or documentation from a male family member — such as a husband or brother — to work, or legal consequences if they don’t follow working restrictions.
While nearly 20 countries still have these legal barriers for women, this number was much larger in the past: in 1970, it was almost 70.
This data only reflects legal restrictions on working rights. In other countries, strong social or cultural pressures still mean that women are less likely to be in formal employment than men, even if they’re legally allowed to.
Explore more data on female participation in the workforce →
Yesterday
As conflicts break out across the world, the threat of nuclear war is never far from many people’s minds.
One of the first questions we need to answer to better understand the risks of nuclear weapons is: which countries have them, and in what quantity? The chart shows estimates of national stockpiles in 2025.
The exact number of warheads is secret, so these are some of the best estimates based on publicly available information, historical records, and occasional leaks.
Nine countries are thought to have nuclear weapons today, but over 80% of warheads are held by just two: Russia and the United States.
While the number of countries that possess nuclear weapons has never been higher, the total number of warheads and tests being carried out is lower than they were a few decades ago.
Read our colleague Max Roser’s article on why nuclear war is a key concern of our generation →
August 06
Forty years ago, public views about homosexuality were extremely negative in many rich countries. As the chart shows, back in 1984, one in three Dutch people believed homosexuality was “never or rarely justified”. In Spain and Great Britain, that view was held by the majority. Perhaps most strikingly, three-quarters of Americans thought the same.
Since then, levels of discrimination have plummeted. Today, the share of people in these countries who think that homosexuality is “never or rarely justified” makes up a shrinking minority. That’s good news — everyone should be free to decide for themselves who they are attracted to.
It might sound odd today to ask whether someone else’s sexuality is justified. But that’s how the long-running World Values Survey phrased it when they began decades ago. Keeping the phrasing consistent helps show how attitudes have changed, but the fact that it may sound outdated now is, in itself, a reflection of how much has changed.
Explore responses to this question in more than a hundred countries →
August 04
As someone who studies the transition to low-carbon energy, I am always on the lookout for electric cars in everyday life. I like to see how common they are, and it has been exciting to see their prominence grow on the roads in the UK.
Last year, more than one in five new cars sold globally were electric. But how does this vary worldwide? This share is shown across a selection of countries in the chart (more are available here).
Norway leads the world by a long way, with almost all new cars there being electric. China is another standout, with nearly half of new sales.
At the bottom, you can see that electric cars are still relatively rare in countries like Japan, Brazil, and India.
In most countries, greenhouse gas emissions from transport have either grown or, at best, stagnated in the last decade. Accelerating the transition to electric vehicles will be crucial to pushing emissions downwards.
Note that “electric” here includes fully-electric and plug-in hybrid cars; you can see the contribution of each here.
Explore data on electric car sales and stocks across countries in our latest update →
August 01
For the first time, in 2024, more than half of the electricity produced in the Netherlands came from renewable sources, and almost all of it (45%) from solar and wind.
As the chart shows, this has been a sharp and recent shift. Even as recently as 2018, over 80% of Dutch electricity was generated by fossil fuels.
The Dutch government signed a national climate accord in 2019 that introduced more than 600 measures to accelerate the shift to low-carbon power. These included further stimulation of solar and wind energy, a rising carbon tax, and the closure of a major coal plant. A rapid surge in renewable electricity followed, with solar and wind growing from 14% to 45% of the electricity mix.
This transition was developed through negotiations with over 100 organizations, including businesses, unions, government agencies, and NGOs. This collaborative approach reflects the Dutch tradition of polderen, a consensus-driven model in which major decisions are made through dialogue and compromise rather than unilateral decisions from central governments.
This matters because it shows that fast transitions are possible not only through top-down mandates but also through cooperation and shared commitment. That’s an encouraging lesson as countries worldwide seek to move away from fossil fuels.
See how each source contributes to the Dutch electricity mix →
July 30
Just a century ago, many of today’s independent countries weren’t self-governing at all. They were colonies controlled by European countries from far away.
Modern European colonialism began in the 15th century, when Spain and Portugal established overseas empires. By the early 20th century, it had peaked: the United Kingdom and France dominated, and nearly 100 modern-day countries were under European control, mostly in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean.
As the chart shows, this changed rapidly after World War II. A wave of decolonization spread across the world, especially in the 1950s and 1960s. Colonies became independent countries, formed their own governments, joined international institutions, and started having their own voice in global decisions.
The decline of colonialism marked one of the biggest political shifts in modern history, from external rule to national sovereignty.
Read more about colonization and state capacity on our dedicated page →
July 28
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?” →
July 25
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 →
