Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think

by Hans Rosling

  Anna Rosling Rönnlund and Ola Rosling

  Stockholm, 2018

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Most of what I understand about the world I learned not from studying data or sitting in front of a computer reading research papers—though I have done a lot of that too—but from spending time with, and discussing the world with, other people. I have had the privilege of traveling, studying, and working all over the world, with people from every continent, every major world religion, and, most importantly, at all income levels. I have learned a lot from the CEOs of international businesses and from my PhD students in Stockholm. I have learned even more from women living in extreme poverty in Africa; from Catholic nuns working in the most remote villages; from medical students in Bangalore and academics from Nigeria, Tanzania, Vietnam, Iran, and Pakistan; and from the thought leaders of countries on all income levels, from Eduardo Mondlane to Melinda Gates. I want to thank all of you for sharing your knowledge with me, for making my life so rich and wonderful, and for showing me a world completely different from the one I learned about in school.

  Understanding the world is one thing. Turning that understanding into a book is another. As always, it is the team behind the scenes who make it possible. Thank you to each one of the dedicated and creative members of staff at Gapminder who built the resources that I used in all my lectures.

  Thank you to our literary agent, Max Brockman, for great advice and support, and to our editors, Drummond Moir at Hodder in the United Kingdom and Will Schwalbe at Macmillan in the United States, for believing in the book, for their kind and calm guidance through the process, and for their wise counsel on how to improve the book. Thanks too to Harald Hultqvist for telling us we had to get an international agent, and to Richard Herold, our editor in Sweden, for being an excellent adviser through the early process and throughout. Thanks to Bill Warhop, the copy editor, and Bryn Clark, for their input. If you found this book readable, it is thanks to Deborah Crewe. She was brave to take on three authors with way too much material. She listened hard to what we wanted, and then worked patiently and with great skill, speed, and humor, turning our eccentric Swenglish into what you have just read. Even more important, she was able to absorb our thousands of fact snippets, anecdotes, and rules of thumb, and help us to mold them into one coherent epic. We are so grateful to our new dear friend.

  Special thank-yous to Max, Ted, and Ebba for letting me spend so many weekends and evenings with your parents, Anna and Ola. I hope that when you read this book and see the work we have been doing you will forgive me a little. And thank you for your own contributions: to Max (12), who spent hours discussing research with me in my office and editing hundreds of my recorded transcripts; to Ted (10), who took photos for Dollar Street, tested our fact questions on his classmates, and went to New York to receive the UN Population Award on my behalf; and to Ebba (8), who came up with clever ideas on how to improve the material and design the artwork you see throughout the book.

  There is a phrase in Swedish, “stå ut.” It means putting up with, bearing with, enduring, hanging in there. I hope my family, friends, and colleagues know how grateful I am that they have “stått ut” with me so much over the years. I realize that the way I work—the way I am—means I have often been absent or, if not absent, then rushing in and out. I know that even when I have been present I have often been distracted and irritating. I can be a frustrating person when I am working, which is almost all the time I am awake. So my thanks go to everyone I have the honor to call a friend and colleague. It is hard to pick out one friend and colleague above all others but I must particularly thank Hans Wigzell, who bravely supported Gapminder from the very beginning and who was with me until the last day, tirelessly trying to figure out ways to prolong my life.

  Above all, for their endless patience and love, my deep and sincere thanks go to my teenage love, wife, and companion throughout my life, Agneta; to my beloved children, Anna, Ola, and Magnus, and their spouses; and to my grandchildren, Doris, Stig, Lars, Max, Ted, Ebba, Tiki, and Mino, who every day give me hope for the future.

  Ola, Anna, and I would also like to thank:

  Jörgen Abrahamsson, Christian Ahlstedt, Johan Aldor, Chris Anderson, Ola Awad, Julia Bachler, Carl-Johan Backman, Shaida Badiee, Moses Badio, Tim Baker, Ulrika Baker, Jean-Pierre Banea-Mayambu, Archie Baron, Aluisio Barros, Luke Bawo, Linus Bengtsson, Omar Benjelloun, Lasse Berg, Anna Bergström, Staffan Bergström, Anita Bergsveen, BGC3, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Sali Bitar, Pelle Bjerke, Stefan Blom, Anders Bolling, Staffan Bremmer, Robin Brittain-Long, Peter Byass, Arthur Câmara, Peter Carlsson, Paul Cheung, Sung-Kyu Choi, Mario Cosby, Andrea Curtis, Jörn Delvert, Kicki Delvert, Alisa Derevo, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Mohammed Dunbar, Nelson Dunbar, Daniel Ek, Anna Mia Ekström, Ziad El-Khatib, Mats Elzén, Klara Elzvik, Martin Eriksson, Erling Persson Foundation, Peter Ewers, Mosoka Fallah, Ben Fausone, Per Fernström, Guenther Fink, Steven Fisher, Luc Forsyth, Anders Frankenberg, Haishan Fu, Minou Fuglesang, Bill Gates, Melinda Gates, George Gavrilis, Anna Gedda, Ricky Gevert, Marcus Gianesco, Nils Petter Gleditsch, Google, Google Public Data team, Georg Götmark, Olof Gränström, Erik Green, Ann-Charlotte Gyllenram, Catharina Hagströmer, Sven Hagströmer, Nina Halden, Rasmus Hallberg, Esther Hamblion, Mona Hammami and the team in Abu Dhabi behind Looking Ahead, Katie Hampson, Hans Hansson, Jasper Heeffer, Per Heggenes, David Herdies, Dan Hillman, Mattias Högberg, Ulf Högberg, Magnus Höglund, Adam Holm, Anu Horsman, Matthias Horx, Abbe Ibrahim, IHCAR, IKEA foundation, Dikena G. Jackson, Oskar Jalkevik and his team at Transkribering.nu, Kent Janer, Jochnick Foundation, Claes Johansson, Jan-Olov Johansson, Klara Johansson, Jan Jörnmark, Åsa Karlsson, Linley Chiwona Karltun, Alan Kay, Haris Shah Khattak, Tariq Khokhar, Niclas Kjellström-Matseke, Tom Kronhöffer, Asli Kulane, Hugo Lagercrantz, Margaret Orunya Lamunu, Staffan Landin, Daniel Lapidus, Anna Rosling Larsson, Jesper Larsson, Pali Lehohla, Martin Lidholt, Victor Lidholt, Henrik Lindahl, Mattias Lindblad, Mattias Lindgren, Lars Lindkvist, Ann Lindstrand, Per Liss, Terence Lo, Håkan Lobell, Per Löfberg, Anna Mariann Lundberg, Karin Brunn Lundgren, Max Lundkvist, Rafael Luzano, Marcus Maeurer, Ewa Magnusson, Lars Magnusson, Jacob Malmros, Niherewa Maselina, Marissa Mayer, Branko Milanović, Zoriah Miller, Katayoon Moazzami, Sibone Mocumbi, Anders Mohlin, Janet Rae Johnson Mondlane, Louis Monier, Abela Mpobela, Paul Muret, Chris Murray, Hisham Najam, Sahar Nejat, Martha Nicholson, Anders Nordström, Lennart Nordström, Marie Nordström, Tolbert Nyenswah, Johan Nystrand, Martin Öhman, Max Orward, Gudrun Østby, Will Page, Francois Pelletier, Karl-Johan Persson, Stefan Persson, Måns Peterson, Stefan Swartling Peterson, Thiago Porto, Postcode Foundation, Arash Pournouri, Amir Rahnama, Joachim Retzlaff, Hannah Ritchie, Ingegerd Rooth, Anders Rönnlund, David Rönnlund, Quiyan Rönnlund, Thomas Rönnlund, Max Roser and The World in Data team, Magnus Rosling, Pia Rosling, Siri Aas Rustad, Gabrielá Sá, Love Sahlin, Xavier Sala-i-Martín, Fia-Stina Sandlund, Ian Saunders, Dmitriy Shekhovtsov and his Valor Software, Harpal Shergill, Sida, Jeroen Smits, Cosimo Spada, Katie Stanton, Bo Stenson, Karin Strand, Eric Swanson, Amirhossein Takian, Lorine Zineb Nora “Loreen” Talhaoui, Manuel Tamez, Andreas Forø Tollefsen, Edward Tufte, Torkild Tylleskär, UNDP, Henrik Urdal, Bas van Leeuwen, the family of Johan Vesterlund, Cesar Victoria, Johan von Schreeb, Alem Walji, Jacob Wallenberg, Eva Wallstam, Rolf Widgren, John Willmoth, Agnes Wold, Fredrik Wollsén and his team, World Health Organization, World We Want Foundation, Danzhen You, Guohua Zheng, and Zhang Zhongxing.

  Mattias Lindgren for compiling most of the Gapminder historic time series for the economy and demography. All my students and doctoral students, from whom I learned so much, all the teachers and students who welcomed us to their schools to help us test our materials, all the amazing consultants around the world who have helped us, Jimmy Wales and the voluntary editors on Wikipedia, and all the Dollar Street families and photographers.

  The previous and current board members of the Gapminder Foundation for their wise and stable support: Hans Wigzell, Christer Gunnarsson,
Bo Sundgren, Gun-Britt Andersson, and Helena Nordenstedt (who also helped with fact-checking). And our amazing Gapminder team, Angie Skazka, Gabriela Sá, Jasper Heeffer, Klara Elzvik, Mikael Arevius, and Olof Gränström, headed by Fernanda Drumond, who tirelessly continued to develop Gapminder’s free teaching materials while we finished this book. And who also gave invaluable input to the manuscript!

  And finally, our wonderful friends and families, for being patient with us and for helping us throughout the process. You know who you are. Without you this book would not have been possible. Thank you.

  APPENDIX

  How Did Your Country Do?

  In 2017, the Gapminder Test launched. It consists of 13 questions, all with an A, B, C alternative. In 2017, Gapminder worked with Ipsos MORI and Novus to test 12,000 people in 14 countries. Their polls were conducted with online panels weighted to be representative of the adult populations. The test was conducted in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Norway, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The 13 fact questions are freely available in multiple languages at www.gapminder.org/test/2017. Read more about the results here: www.gapminder.org/test/2017/results.

  To learn more about the methodology of these polls and the supporting data behind the correct answers, see “Notes” here.

  Education of girls in low-income countries

  Majority income level

  Extreme poverty

  Lifespan

  Future number of children1

  More people

  Natural disasters

  Where people live

  Vaccination of children

  Women’s education

  Endangered animals

  Electricity

  Climate

  Number of correct answers out of the first twelve questions

  NOTES

  We have taken enormous care to check and double-check our sources and the ways we have used them: in a book about Factfulness, we do not want to make a single fact mistake. But we are human beings; however hard we strive, we still make mistakes.

  If you spot a mistake, please share your knowledge and enable us to improve this book. Contact us at factfulness-book@gapminder.org. And find all the mistakes that have already been spotted at: gapminder.org/factfulness/book/mistakes.

  Below is a selected set of notes and sources. You can find the full list here: gapm.io/ffbn.

  General Notes

  Data for 2017. Throughout the book, where economic indicators do not extend to 2017, Gapminder has extended the series, mainly using forecasts from the World Economic Outlook from IMF[1]. For extending demographic data, we have used the World Population Prospect 2017, see UN-Pop[1]. See gapm.io/eext.

  Country boundaries. Throughout the book, we refer to countries in the past as if they always had the boundaries they have today. For example, we talk about Bangladesh’s family sizes and life expectancy in 1942 as if it had been an independent country at that time, although in reality it was still under British rule as part of British India. See gapm.io/geob.

  Inside Cover

  World Health Chart 2017. When you open the book, you see a colorful chart: the World Health Chart 2017. Each bubble is a country. The size of the bubble represents the country’s population, and the color of the bubble its geographical region. On the x-axis is GDP per capita (PPP in constant 2011 international $) and on the y-axis life expectancy. The population data comes from UN-Pop[1], the GDP data from World Bank[1], and the life expectancy data from IHME[1], all extended to 2017 by Gapminder as described above. This chart, together with more information about the sources, is freely available at www.gapminder.org/whc.

  Introduction

  X-ray. The X-ray was taken by Staffan Bremmer at Sophiahemmet in Stockholm. The sword swallower is a friend of Hans’s, called Maryanne Magdalen. Her website is here: gapm.io/xsword.

  Fact questions. The 13 fact questions are freely available in multiple languages at www.gapminder.org/test/2017.

  Online polls. Gapminder worked with Ipsos MORI and Novus to test 12,000 people in 14 countries. Their polls were conducted with online panels weighted to be representative of the adult populations—Ipsos MORI[1] and Novus[1]. The average number of correct answers for the 12 questions (i.e., excluding question 13 on climate change) was 2.2, which we rounded to 2. See more at gapm.io/rtest17.

  Poll results. The results of the online polls by question and country are set out in the appendix. For the results of the polls we have conducted in our lectures, see gapm.io/rrs.

  World Economic Forum lecture. For a video recording of the lecture (the audience receives its results five minutes and 18 seconds in), see WEF.

  Fact Question 1: Correct answer is C. Sixty percent of the girls in low-income countries finish primary school. According to World Bank[3], the number is 63.2 percent, but we rounded it to 60 percent to avoid overstating progress. See gapm.io/q1.

  Fact Question 2: Correct answer is B. The majority of people live in middle-income countries. The World Bank[2] divides countries into income groups based on gross national income per capita in current US $. According to the World Bank[4], the low-income countries represent 9 percent of the world population, the middle-income countries, 76 percent of the world population, and the high-income countries, 16 percent of the world population. See gapm.io/q2.

  Fact Question 3: Correct answer is C. The share of people living on less than $1.9/day fell from 34 percent in 1993 to 10.7 percent in 2013, according to World Bank[5]. Despite the impression of precision given by the precise threshold of $1.9/day and the use of decimals, the uncertainties in these numbers are very large. Extreme poverty is very difficult to measure: the poorest people are mostly subsistence farmers or destitute slum dwellers, with unpredictable and constantly changing living conditions and few documented monetary transactions. But even if the exact levels are uncertain, the trend direction is not uncertain, because the sources of error are probably constant over time. We can trust that the level has fallen to at least half, if not one-third. See gapm.io/q3.

  Fact Question 4: Correct answer is C. The average global life expectancy for those born in 2016 was 72.48 years, according to IHME[1]. The UN-Pop[3] estimate is slightly lower, at 71.9 years. We rounded to 70 to avoid overstating progress. See gapm.io/q4.

  Fact Question 5: Correct answer is C. For the past ten years, UN-Pop[2] has published forecasts predicting that the number of children in the year 2100 will not be higher than it is today. See gapm.io/q5.

  Fact Question 6: Correct answer is B. In their forecasts, the experts at the UN Population Division calculate that 1 percent of the population increase will come from 0.37 billion more children (age 0–14), 69 percent from 2.5 billion more adults (age 15 to 74), and 30 percent from 1.1 billion more very old people (age 75 and older). Data is from UN-Pop[3]. See gapm.io/q6.

  Fact Question 7: Correct answer is C. Annual deaths from natural disasters have decreased by 75 percent over the past 100 years, according to the International Disaster Database; see EM-DAT. Since disasters vary from year to year, we compare ten-year averages. In the last ten years (2007–2016), on average 80,386 people were killed by natural disasters per year. This is 25 percent of the number 100 years earlier (1907–1916), when it was 325,742 deaths per year. See gapm.io/q7.

  Fact Question 8: Correct answer is A. The world population in 2017 is 7.55 billion, according to UN-Pop[1]. That would usually be rounded to eight billion, but we show seven billion because we are rounding the population region by region. The populations of the four Gapminder[1] regions were estimated based on national data from UN-Pop[1]: the Americas, 1.0 billion; Europe, 0.84 billion; Africa, 1.3 billion; Asia, 4.4 billion. See gapm.io/q8.

  Fact Question 9: Correct answer is C. Eighty-eight percent of one-year-old children in the world today are vaccinated against some disease, according to WHO[1]. We rounded it down to 80 percent to avoid overstating progress. See gapm.io/q9.

  Fact Question 10
: Correct answer is A. Worldwide, women aged 25 to 34 have an average of 9.09 years of schooling, and men have 10.21, according to IHME[2] estimates from 188 countries. Women aged 25 to 29 have an average of 8.79 years of schooling, and men 9.32 years, according to Barro and Lee (2013) estimates from 146 countries in 2010. See gapm.io/q10.

  Fact Question 11: Correct answer is C. None of the three species are classified as more critically endangered today than they were in 1996, according to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The tiger (Panthera tigris) was classified as Endangered (EN) in 1996, and it still is; see IUCN Red List[1]. But after a century of decline, tiger numbers in the wild are on the rise, according to WWF and Platt (2016). According to IUCN Red List[2], the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) was classified as Endangered (EN) in 1996, but in 2015, new assessments of increasing wild populations resulted in a change of classification to the less critical status Vulnerable (VU). The black rhino (Diceros bicornis) was classified as Critically Endangered (CR) and still is; see IUCN Red List[3]. But the International Rhino Foundation says many populations in the wild are slowly increasing. See gapm.io/q11.

  Fact Question 12: Correct answer is C. A majority of the world population, 85.3 percent, had some access to the electricity grid in their countries, according to GTF. We rounded this down to 80 percent to avoid overstating progress. The term “access” is defined differently in all their underlying sources. In some extreme cases, households may experience an average of 60 power outages per week and still be listed as “having access to electricity.” The question, accordingly, talks about “some” access. See gapm.io/q12.