WORLD PULSE
—:—:— PKT

World Pulse · dashboard

The world, indicator by indicator

21 indicators · 217 countries · 156,366 observations. Each indicator is read at the most recent year that still has near-complete coverage. Neither rule works alone: child stunting's newest year has six reporters, and internet use is best covered in 1990, when nearly every country reported it as zero.

Prevalence of stunting, height for age (% of children under 5)

read at 2018 · 8 years old

Share of children under five whose height for their age falls more than two standard deviations below the WHO growth standard — the marker of chronic undernutrition.

World median

23.0% of under-5s

Countries reporting

48/ 217

Observations, all years

1.1k

The median is computed across the 48 countries reporting in 2018 — arithmetic over real values, not a published figure. Lower is better for this indicator.

How the world is spread · 2018

3 countries between 1.0 and 3.0 % of under-5s2 countries between 3.0 and 5.0 % of under-5s4 countries between 5.0 and 7.0 % of under-5s5 countries between 7.0 and 8.9 % of under-5s2 countries between 8.9 and 10.9 % of under-5s4 countries between 10.9 and 12.9 % of under-5s1 country between 14.9 and 16.9 % of under-5s1 country between 16.9 and 18.9 % of under-5s1 country between 18.9 and 20.9 % of under-5s1 country between 20.9 and 22.8 % of under-5s2 countries between 22.8 and 24.8 % of under-5s2 countries between 24.8 and 26.8 % of under-5s1 country between 26.8 and 28.8 % of under-5s4 countries between 28.8 and 30.8 % of under-5s4 countries between 30.8 and 32.8 % of under-5s2 countries between 32.8 and 34.8 % of under-5s1 country between 34.8 and 36.7 % of under-5s4 countries between 36.7 and 38.7 % of under-5s1 country between 38.7 and 40.7 % of under-5s1 country between 40.7 and 42.7 % of under-5s1 country between 46.7 and 48.7 % of under-5s1 country between 54.6 and 56.6 % of under-5sMEDIAN1.056.6
48 countries reporting · each bar is a count of countries, not a value · Pakistan 37.6 % of under-5s

How much of the world was measured

ALL 2171983: 1 of 217 countries reported1984: 1 of 217 countries reported1985: 4 of 217 countries reported1986: 10 of 217 countries reported1987: 15 of 217 countries reported1988: 12 of 217 countries reported1989: 9 of 217 countries reported1990: 10 of 217 countries reported1991: 19 of 217 countries reported1992: 20 of 217 countries reported1993: 22 of 217 countries reported1994: 21 of 217 countries reported1995: 27 of 217 countries reported1996: 34 of 217 countries reported1997: 21 of 217 countries reported1998: 25 of 217 countries reported1999: 27 of 217 countries reported2000: 58 of 217 countries reported2001: 21 of 217 countries reported2002: 23 of 217 countries reported2003: 23 of 217 countries reported2004: 31 of 217 countries reported2005: 34 of 217 countries reported2006: 44 of 217 countries reported2007: 31 of 217 countries reported2008: 30 of 217 countries reported2009: 33 of 217 countries reported2010: 42 of 217 countries reported2011: 38 of 217 countries reported2012: 45 of 217 countries reported2013: 32 of 217 countries reported2014: 52 of 217 countries reported2015: 32 of 217 countries reported2016: 37 of 217 countries reported2017: 30 of 217 countries reported2018: 48 of 217 countries reported2019: 46 of 217 countries reported2020: 26 of 217 countries reported2021: 32 of 217 countries reported2022: 32 of 217 countries reported2023: 25 of 217 countries reported2024: 6 of 217 countries reported19832024
Best year 2000 with 58 of 217 · most recent 2024 with 6. A short bar means the world did not measure, not that the value fell.

Highest · 2018

Burundi56.6
Niger48.5
Madagascar41.6
Malawi39.0
Afghanistan38.2
Pakistan37.6
Central African Republic37.5
Nigeria36.8

Lowest · 2018

Poland1.0
Finland1.3
United Kingdom2.0
United States3.4
Jamaica4.6
Georgia5.8
Turkiye6.0
Cabo Verde6.0

Read with care

  • · Measured by national nutrition surveys run every few years, so most countries have gaps and the latest figure may be several years old.
  • · Reflects cumulative deprivation over a child's whole life, so it moves slowly and lags improvements in income.

What we can actually see

Coverage is wildly uneven, and that unevenness is a finding rather than a footnote. Life expectancy is near-universal; the survey-based indicators are not. Sorted by how much of the world reports at all.

IndicatorCountriesYearsRead atObservations
Life expectancy217 / 2171960–20242024 (217)14,071
Fertility rate217 / 2171960–20242024 (217)14,073
Population217 / 2171960–20252025 (217)14,292
Electricity access216 / 2171990–20242024 (215)6,747
GDP per capita214 / 2171960–20252025 (186)11,764
Internet use213 / 2171990–20252024 (182)6,224
Primary enrolment209 / 2171970–20252023 (166)7,495
GDP per capita (PPP)203 / 2171990–20252025 (185)7,020
Education spending203 / 2171970–20252022 (164)5,124
CO₂ per person203 / 2171970–20242024 (203)11,165
Under-5 mortality196 / 2171960–20242024 (196)11,861
Maternal mortality194 / 2171985–20232023 (194)7,566
Inflation193 / 2171960–20252025 (165)9,136
Health spending193 / 2172000–20242023 (192)4,562
Unemployment187 / 2171991–20252025 (182)6,531
Extreme poverty171 / 2171963–20252021 (81)2,430
Income inequality (Gini)171 / 2171963–20252021 (81)2,430
Adult literacy170 / 2171970–20242022 (45)1,121
Military spending164 / 2171960–20242024 (147)7,909
Child stunting163 / 2171983–20242018 (48)1,129
Safe drinking water151 / 2172000–20242024 (148)3,716

Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators. Nothing here is interpolated — where a country never reported, it is absent rather than estimated. Browse every country →