2009: The World in Numbers
- In Algeria, 70% of lawyers and 60% of judges are women.
- Murder is the leading cause of death among pregnant women in the US.
- There are now 3.3 billion mobile phone accounts globally, a figure roughly equal to half the world’s population.
- Sharks kill around 10 people each year. Falling coconuts kill approximately 150.
- It is estimated that financial services companies hold around 30% of all office space in London.
- There is expected to be a 36% increase in the number of people aged 75+ in Japan between 2005 and 2015.
- During the same period the number of people aged under 5 years-of-age is predicted to decline by 13%.
- The Self-storage industry in America has grown more than 40-fold since the 1960s and now consists of over a billion square-feet of empty (and not so empty) space.
- In value terms the industry is now considerably larger than the US music industry.
- According to Gartner, 80% of Internet users will have avatars or digital replicas of themselves by the year 2011.
- Approximately 2,600 people die and 330,000 people are seriously injured every year in the US due to talking and texting on cell-phones whilst driving.
- 24% of Russians expect to see a clash with the US in the near future compared with only 4% of Chinese.
- Around 80% of all news available on the Internet originates in newspapers.
- 9.5 million people now have financial assets of at least US$1 million.
- The US Department of Defence is aiming to replace 33% of armed vehicles with robots by the year 2015.
- Almost 10% of British homes no longer have a landline telephone.
- 14,000 new cars take to the road in China every single day.
- Sales of CD music titles sold in paper jackets (i.e. reminiscent of vinyl records) rose by 100% in Japan in 2005.
- 90% of all scientists and engineers with PhDs will live in Asia by 2010.
- Of the 120,000 blogs created daily,50% are about the same subject - the writer.
- By the year 2015, West Africa will become the world’s largest source of crude oil outside of the Middle East.
- A report by the Kaiser Family Foundation says that 53% of US students (grades 7-12) consumed another form of media whilst ‘watching’ television.
- The fine for possessing a hamster in Vietnam is US$1,900.
- 1% of all adults in the US are in jail.
- Families in the UK spend GB £14,800 per year on household bills. Five years ago the figure was £8,000.
- There are now more pensioners aged > sixty (11.2 million) than children aged < sixteen (11.1 million) in the UK.
- Pets outnumber people 1.5:1 in Australia
- The latest Justin Timberlake Album is available in 115 formats.
- There was a 400% rise in Chinese patent applications between 1995 and 2005.
- The number of breast-augmentation surgeries performed on female teens rose by 55% in the US between 2006 and 2007.
- 50% of New York University students said they would “permanently forfeit” the right to vote in exchange for a one-off payment of US$1million.
- Between 1991 and 2005 deaths directly related to alcohol nearly doubled in the UK.
- 80% of UK wealth is held by people aged 55+
- Around 100 million people are thought to have died prematurely during the 20th Century due to cigarette smoking.
- In 2005, 40% of UK weddings involved someone that was getting married for at least the second time.
- 2.9 million rooms have been ‘lost’ in British homes since 2003 due to open-plan home conversions.
- Consumer spending by those aged 65-74 in the UK is predicted to increase by 40% by 2017.
- In 2003, the minimum wage in the UK was £4.20 per hour. In the US it was $5.15. In China it was 18 pence (29 cents) and it India it was 7 pence (11 cents).
- 74% of Britons think that ‘green taxes’ are a con.
- The number of non-food antibacterial products launched globally grew from less than 200 in 2003 to 1,610 in 2006 according to Mintel’s New Products Database.
- US $750 billion is now managed globally under Islamic or Sharia principles.
- In 2020 the dominant family type in Australia will be couples without children.
- Smoking kills 25% of all men in the developing world.
- Sales of the five major painkilling medicines grew by 88% in the US between 1997-2005.
- China has 21% of the world’s population but only 1.8% of the world’s oil supply.
- Ford’s 2007 car fleet averaged 18.7 mpg. A 1908 Ford Model T could reach 25mpg.
- The UK’s DNA Database contains information on 40% of black men in Britain.
- According to the General Social Survey (US) there has been a 300% increase in the number of Americans that have absolutely nobody to talk to about their problems.
- 50% of men in the UK say that they would give up sex for six months in return for a 50-inch plasma television.
- However, only 17% would give up the internet in exchange for the television.
- 40% of the world’s 923,000 industrial robots reside in Japan.
- Between 1980-2000 membership of political parties in the West fell by almost 50%
- It is predicted that the retail space devoted to recorded music in the US will have fallen by 30% during 2008.
- 90% of men that have walked on the moon were once Boy Scouts.
- 85% of primary school teachers in the UK are female and 39% of boys aged 8-11 have no male teachers whatsoever.
- Fewer than 5% of Americans take public transport to work.
- In 1970, 80% of British children walked to school. By 2007 the figure had fallen to 9%.
- 86% of the world’s population will live in emerging markets by the year 2050
- In 2007, only 6% of American men wore a tie to work every day. In 2002 the figure was 10%.
- Oil majors control less than 10 percent of world resources of gas and oil, against 70 percent in the 1970s.
- There are 26 million businesses in the US and 20 million of these have no employees.
- 35% of US small-business owners are dyslexics.
- In 1992 girls aged 14 drank 3.8 units (roughly 2/3 of a bottle) of wine a week. By 2004 the figure had risen to 9.7 units per week.
- Britons spend 20% of their annual income on leisure, up from 9% in 1957
- To make a cotton T-Shirt requires 27,000 litres of water
- 42% of the world’s population now lives under double-digit inflation.
- There were 8,987 new cases of MRSA in the US in 2005, resulting in 1,598 deaths. The total number of deaths since 2005 stands at 18,650,
- which compares to 17,011 deaths from AIDS.
- Cement production accounts for 5% of global carbon dioxide emissions.
- 81,000 people died on Chinese roads during 2007
- 14% of American dogs suffer from separation anxiety.
- According to the University of East Anglia (UK) the chance of finding intelligent life on another planet over the next 4 billion years is 0.01%
- More than 85% of the information held by organizations is unstructured.
- According to a 2007 UNICEF study, the UK is ranked last of 27 surveyed countries when it comes to child well being.
- In China there are 228 million Internet users compared to 217 million in the US.
- 55% of women in America die their hair.
- 12.6% of US residents (37.6 million people) are illegal immigrants.
- 31% of people living in London were born outside of the UK.
- 62% of people living in Britain aged 18-24 say they believe in horoscopes versus 38% who say they believe in the Bible.
- 10% of Americans believe that the Internet brings them closer to God versus 6% that say it makes them feel more distant.
- The average cost to create a cancer drug is US$1.04 billion. The FDAs approval rate for cancer drugs between 1990-2007 was 8%.
- 2.5 million US children are on prescribed antipsychotic drugs.
- In 2004, the richest 1% of the American population took home US$1.35 trillion in pay.
- This is more than the total national take-home pay in Canada, Italy or France.
- 52% of Korean infants aged 3-5 regularly use the Internet, spending on average 4 hours every week online.
- 77 billion corporate emails are sent every working day. By 2012 the number is expected to be around 150 billion.
- 5% of Soviet officials under President Gorbachev had security service backgrounds. Under Putin the figure was 78%.
- 70% of people in the UK have no ties whatsoever to any local group or association.
- There were 411,000 books published in the US in 2007
