Think the whole world’s going to hell in a handbasket? You’re wrong, and here’s why

It might come as a surprise given the violence and political turmoil that has dominated the news but 2025 is shaping as a pretty good year for the world’s average person.

That’s not to downplay the significance of the conflicts playing out across the globe. Peacefulness worldwide has declined for the past five years according to an index prepared by the Institute for Economics and Peace. The wars in Gaza and Ukraine are just two of 56 active conflicts identified by the institute; that’s the most “since the end of the Second World War”.

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A United Nations preview of likely humanitarian needs this year described the world as being “on fire” and warned more than 300 million people will require emergency assistance in the months ahead. And yet, a raft of measures ranging from longevity to literacy suggests humanity is in better shape than ever.

After a brief dip during the pandemic, life spans are improving. Global life expectancy is at an all-time high of 73.3 years despite the prevalence of deadly conflict. That’s almost seven years longer than in 2000. (Australia does especially well on that count; figures published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in November show we have the world’s fourth-longest life expectancy at 83.2 years)

The world has also never been better able to care for its newborns – the share of children dying before reaching the age of five has halved since 2000 and continues to fall.

The World Bank says global poverty reduction “has resumed” after the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the turn of this century, 30 per cent of the world’s population survived on less than $US2.15 ($3.43) per person per day in 2011 prices (the global measure of extreme poverty) but that fell to an all-time low of 8.5 per cent last year. The overall number living in extreme poverty has also fallen sharply – data published by ourworldindata.org shows that in 1990 there were almost 2 billion people living on less than $US2.15 a day, but by last year that number was down to 693 million.

The list of improvements goes on. Medical advances are saving and enhancing millions of lives. The global literacy rate is at a record high and a long-standing gender literacy gap between young men and women is now negligible.

The share of households with access to electricity is at a record 91 per cent, underpinning widespread internet use and allowing greater economic participation.

Meanwhile, the CO2 emissions that contribute to global warming have plateaued on a per-capita basis. While faster progress to reduce greenhouse gases is needed, that’s a positive milestone in the effort to tackle climate change.

Dr Charles Kenny, an expert in international development at the Washington-based Centre for Global Development, says 2025 is shaping as “at least one of the best years to be alive” for the average human.

“There’s a good possibility of it being the year with the lowest chance of dying in history, the best chance of surviving childhood, the best chance of getting educated, the best chance of avoiding extreme poverty and the best chance of having access to electricity,” he told me. “But likely not the lowest chance of dying in war, or [the chance of] living in a liberal democracy.”

The improvement in so many global wellbeing indicators has happened despite the growing prevalence of violent conflict and the hundreds of millions of people requiring humanitarian assistance.

Oxford University professor Max Roser, who founded the Our World in Data project, sums up the complexity this way: “The world is awful. The world is much better. The world can be much better. All three statements are true at the same time.”

The flow of negative world news tends to overshadow stories of gradual progress.

Opinion polls show most people in countries like Australia believe the world is much more poverty-stricken, sickly and desperate than it actually is. Take extreme poverty for example. The rapid decline in poverty rates during the past three decades has improved the lives of hundreds of millions and transformed the global economy. But research shows many people are oblivious to that momentous, world-changing trend.

A large global survey by the Swedish foundation, Gapminder, asked what proportion of the world’s population live in extreme poverty with three possible answers: around 10 per cent; around 30 per cent; and around 50 per cent. The correct answer is around 10 per cent but only one in 10 respondents got it right. Around a third believed extreme poverty had increased in recent decades when the opposite is true.

People are more negative about places that are far away – places which they know less from their own experience and more through the media. But that level of public misperception is dangerous. The failure to recognise historic improvements, such as the decline in global poverty, feeds into a general pessimism about the possibility of change. Why bother if the world is doomed?

“If we only see the problems and only hear what is going wrong, we have no hope that the future can be better,” writes Roser.

The unfounded pessimism about global progress may encourage more isolationist policies and limit cooperation and investment in global public goods like public health, emissions reduction and climate change mitigation that will improve everyone’s wellbeing and life chances.

“Global cooperation is more important to continued progress than ever,” says Kenny.

More tragedy and turmoil is inevitable in 2025 but even so, for millions and millions of people around the globe, things are getting measurably better.

Matt Wade is a senior economics writer at The Sydney Morning Herald.