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1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsBy two important measures of human well-being, the world has made striking long-term progress: people live longer, and a much smaller share of children die before age five. But that is not the whole picture. Recent extreme-poverty reduction has stalled, democracy has faced a downturn, and the answer changes with the outcomes and time periods you choose.
What the charts show—and what they cannot
The title echoes a 2019 article by Julius Probst, republished by Scroll.in from The Conversation. Its charts covered life expectancy, child mortality, fertility, GDP growth, global income inequality, democracy and conflict. Those are different kinds of measures: some describe material or health outcomes, while others describe political institutions or social conditions. The article’s figures and political descriptions are historical, not a current scoreboard.
Updated evidence supports a qualified conclusion rather than a single verdict. Health indicators show large improvements over decades. Poverty and democracy data complicate that story, and the direction of conflict cannot be established from the historical chart alone. A chart is most useful when its definition, dates and limits are clear.
Health: longer lives and fewer child deaths
Life expectancy rose substantially over the long run
Our World in Data reports global life expectancy at birth of 32 years in 1900 and 73 years in 2023. The 2025 series combines historical mortality research, Human Mortality Database data and the UN’s World Population Prospects 2024, processed by Our World in Data. Life expectancy at birth is a period measure: it summarizes mortality rates at a given time. It is not a prediction that a particular newborn will live exactly that long. Shocks can interrupt the long-run increase.
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Under-five mortality has fallen, but remains consequential
Using UN World Population Prospects 2024, Our World in Data reports that the global under-five mortality share fell from 23% in 1950 to 3.6% in 2024. As Max Roser of Our World in Data puts the earlier figure, “In 1950, almost one in four children worldwide died before their fifth birthday.” The global trend does not mean the risk is equal everywhere: regional differences remain, and millions of children still die before age five.
Keep estimates distinct from projections. A regional insight from the same source includes 2024–2025 figures projected under the UN medium scenario; those values should be labeled as projections, not observations. The global 2024 figure above is reported from the UN estimates series.
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Poverty: a revised line changes the count, not people’s past circumstances
Comparisons with the 2019 article’s “$2 a day” framing are outdated. In June 2025, the World Bank raised the international extreme-poverty line from $2.15 to $3 per day, expressed in 2021 prices. Under the revised threshold, 125 million more people are counted as living in extreme poverty in 2024 than under the previous line. That increase reflects a change in the poverty threshold and purchasing-power basis; it does not mean those people suddenly became poorer when the line changed.
The revised series still shows a large decline in extreme poverty since 1990. However, Our World in Data’s 2025 explainer says recent poverty reduction has stalled, with incomes stagnant in places where many of the poorest people live. The long-run direction and the current pace are therefore different questions.
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Democracy and human rights do not move in lockstep
Democratic expansion has faced a recent reversal
Whether “about half the world lives in democracies” is true depends on the definition, measure and year. Our World in Data describes democracy as having expanded greatly over centuries but recently declined. Its current overview reports 45 countries autocratizing in 2025, citing Episodes of Regime Transformation data. That figure describes countries, not the share of the global population living under a particular regime type.
Human rights are a related but separate measure
Our World in Data reports that the V-Dem human-rights index was higher in every world region in 2023 than a century earlier. That long-run regional comparison coexists with uneven progress, recent setbacks and substantial differences among regions. A rights index is not interchangeable with a democracy measure, so improvement in one does not establish improvement in the other.
Why the original charts cannot settle every question
The 2019 article also charted fertility, GDP growth, global income inequality and conflict. The current evidence summarized here does not provide comparable updated values for those chart themes. In particular, the historical conflict comparison is not enough to establish whether conflict is declining now. It would be misleading to treat an old chart as proof of the present direction.
Nor can a collection of indicators automatically produce one objective “better” score. A peer-reviewed analysis of indicators from 2000–2015 makes the methodological point that choosing different measures and assigning them different weights can change whether an overall result appears positive or negative. That study is useful for understanding the problem of combining indicators, not as a current global scorecard; it also considers negative trends such as climate change.
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How to read a chart about whether the world is improving
Before treating a chart as evidence for a broad claim, check the following:
- Definition: What exactly is counted? A poverty line, an under-five mortality measure and a democracy classification answer different questions.
- Time span: Does the chart compare the same years and show both long-term change and recent reversals?
- Population and geography: Is it a global average, a population-weighted measure or a regional result? Global gains can coexist with serious regional gaps.
- Estimate or projection: Are the latest values observed estimates or modeled projections? Mark projected years clearly.
- Data revision: Has the source changed its threshold, purchasing-power basis or historical series? A revised count may not represent a real-world change at the time of revision.
- Outcome or institution: Does the measure track lived conditions, such as mortality or income, or an institutional condition, such as democracy?
- Weighting: If several indicators are combined, which ones were selected and how much does each count?
For a personal-finance reader, the poverty-line example is especially useful: a global indicator can change because statistical standards change, even when no household’s circumstances changed on that date. To judge actual progress, keep the measurement rule separate from the real-world trend it is intended to track.
So, is the world becoming a better place?
The answer depends on what “better” means. The long-run evidence on life expectancy and child survival shows major gains. The current poverty picture is less reassuring than the longer historical decline, democracy is in a recent downturn, and the cited evidence does not establish a current direction for conflict. Those findings support neither an unqualified “yes” nor a blanket “no.” They show why a defensible answer must name the outcomes, dates and populations being compared.
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