Our World in Data

In 2023, unemployment in the European Union declined to the lowest point in over three decades— Last year, the European Union's population experienced its lowest unemployment rate in over thirty years. The chart shows that unemployment rates were above 10% in the mid-1990s and early 2010s. The rate has steadily declined since its peak in 2013, nearly halving over the past ten years. Unemployment refers to individuals who are available for and actively seeking work but cannot find employment. It differs from economic inactivity, which includes people who are neither working nor actively looking for work. (This Daily Data Insight was written by Simon van Teutem.) Explore the data on unemployment where you live: https://lnkd.in/gnZ3NkkE

The period between the 1940s and 1960s is known as “the golden age of antibiotics”, as intense research into natural and synthetic compounds led to the rapid discovery of many new antibiotics. How abundant was antibiotic development during that time period? How many types of antibiotics were developed? Learn more about the history, impact, and future of antibiotics and antibiotic resistance on our new page: https://lnkd.in/gYHymJvr

As 2024 comes to a close, we thank all of you for your support — whether through your donations, thoughtful feedback, or new creations built upon our work as a public good. Your contributions help us to help even more people. We wish you a happy holiday season and a great start to the new year!

For most people, international migration means crossing a nearby border, not an ocean. Let’s look at Asia, the most populous continent. When an Asian emigrant leaves their home country, they can move to either another Asian country or one of the other five continents. Six out of ten Asian emigrants stay within Asia. European and North American emigrants show an even stronger tendency to stay in their continent, at 70% and 87%, respectively. In Africa and South America, this share is smaller, at about half. While this data aims to include illegal migrants, experts acknowledge the challenges in fully measuring this population. It makes sense that most migrants stay on the same continent. For instance, people might prefer places where they share a language or culture, have family nearby, or can return home cheaply and more quickly. In a new article, Simon van Teutem and Tuna Acisu look at what the data on international migration shows us: https://lnkd.in/g7cmBD5Y

We recently made it even easier to reuse the data we provide, with two new features — upgraded data downloads & an API. We’ve heard how helpful these are from many users — e.g., data scientists & researchers have told us how the API makes their workflows more efficient and reproducible. If you haven’t checked out our new download features yet, you can learn about them here: https://lnkd.in/gb-uixAY These new features were developed in direct response to feedback from readers and made possible thanks to the generous donations of thousands of supporters. If you’d like to support our work, please consider giving monthly or once here: https://lnkd.in/ehbQmKsh

What can the history of book production teach us about economic growth? A few centuries ago, the only way to produce a book was for a scribe to copy it word-for-word by hand. Book production was a slow process; it took a scribe about eight months of daily work to produce a single copy of the Bible. It was so laborious that only very few books were produced. The chart shows the estimates of historians. But then, in the 15th century, the goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg combined the idea of movable letters with the mechanism that he knew from the wine presses in his hometown. He developed the printing press. Gutenberg developed a new production technology, and it changed things dramatically. Instead of spending months to produce one book, a worker was now able to produce several books a day. As the printing press spread across Europe, book production soared. Books, which were previously only available to a tiny elite, became available to more and more people. This is one example of how growth is possible and what economic growth *is*: an increase in the production of goods and services that people produce for each other. Read more about what economic growth is and why it’s so important: https://lnkd.in/gk6vB3a

What can the history of book production teach us about economic growth? A few centuries ago, the only way to produce a book was for a scribe to copy it word-for-word by hand. Book production was a slow process; it took a scribe about eight months of daily work to produce a single copy of the Bible. It was so laborious that only very few books were produced. The chart shows the estimates of historians. But then, in the 15th century, the goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg combined the idea of movable letters with the mechanism that he knew from the wine presses in his hometown. He developed the printing press. Gutenberg developed a new production technology, and it changed things dramatically. Instead of spending months to produce one book, a worker was now able to produce several books a day. As the printing press spread across Europe, book production soared. Books, which were previously only available to a tiny elite, became available to more and more people. This is one example of how growth is possible and what economic growth *is*: an increase in the production of goods and services that people produce for each other. Read more about what economic growth is and why it’s so important: https://lnkd.in/gk6vB3a

Did you know that US airlines have carried passengers a distance of 2.3 *light-years* since the last crash? Or that Japan’s birth rate dropped by more than 20% in 1966 because of astrological predictions? If you want a whole bunch of interesting insights like this directly in your inbox every other Friday, subscribe to our Biweekly Digest newsletter! Subscribe here: https://lnkd.in/dYN6h4_p Read today’s edition here: https://lnkd.in/gh4BhVCA

Poor material living conditions have been such a persistent and pervasive reality that, for much of human history, it was unimaginable that they could ever be different. Poverty did not change and so it was easy to believe that poverty was unchangeable. The Reverend Thomas Malthus wrote about the living conditions in his native England: “It has appeared that from the inevitable laws of our nature, some human beings must suffer from want. These are the unhappy persons who, in the great lottery of life, have drawn a blank.” Reconstructions of living conditions over the long-run suggest that when Malthus wrote these words in 1789, he was right about the past. But Malthus turned out to be very wrong about the future after his death: In the two centuries since since then, many countries broke out of the stagnation of the past, achieved economic growth, and reduced poverty. Read more about why our ancestors were stuck in poverty for so long, how this changed, and what it means: https://lnkd.in/gGTmcwa

The world is awful. The world is much better. The world can be much better. All three statements are true at the same time. Understanding this is key to solving big global problems. At Our World in Data, we believe data & research can help us understand both the problems we face & the progress that’s possible. To understand problems, we need data & research. It’s tempting to believe that we can simply rely on personal experience to develop our understanding of the world. But that’s not the case, as our founder Max Roser explains in this essay: https://lnkd.in/gfXAYCH8 Crucial data & research exist, but they’re often hidden behind paywalls, buried in tables, or obscured by jargon. Our mission is to change this, by making the data & insights needed to understand our world accessible & understandable for everyone: https://lnkd.in/gK4AW5NC Our World in Data is a collaborative project & a public good. You can support our mission in many ways: 1️⃣ Explore & share our work, give us feedback to help us improve, & stay up to date via social media or our newsletters. Find all the ways to engage here: https://lnkd.in/dYN6h4_p 2️⃣ You can also build on our work to create something new. We design our work to have an impact beyond what our team can achieve directly. That’s why we use a permissive Creative Commons license & include easy options to share & download our charts & data. 3️⃣ You can also support us with a donation. Reader donations are essential to our work—they give us the stability & independence to deliver more data, charts, & insights on an increasing number of topics, all free & open to everyone. You can give monthly or once here: https://lnkd.in/ehbQmKsh Learn more about our team and work here: https://lnkd.in/ekCudZE Dive deeper into our mission with related articles, including the source of the first chart in this thread: https://lnkd.in/e8yWpst