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A World with Just 100 People
Imagine if the population of the world was just 100 people – a representative sample of the 6.76 billion that live on the planet. What would this group of people look like?
When we hear global statistics about poverty, disease and economics, it’s sometimes hard to grasp what these huge numbers actually mean. Imagine being present at a meeting of 100 individuals forming a truly representative sample of the world’s population. What would that group look like? How similar and different would each person be from the others? Where would you fit in?
In this 100-person sample, 61 people would be from Asia (which would include 20 from China and 17 from India), 14 would be from Africa, 11 from Europe, 9 from Latin America, the Carribbean or Oceania and 5 from northern America.
Image via Wikipedia
It would be a multi-lingual group, with 13 speaking Mandarin Chinese as their first language. Five people wouild speak Spanish as a first language, and 5 more would speak English. Arabic, Hindi, Portugese and Bengali would each be spoken as a first language by 3 people. As well as the native speakers, a further 23 people will be able to speak or understand English to some degree in addition to their own first language.
The median age of the group would be 27 for men and 28 for women. 27 of the people would be children under 15, and 11 would be over 60.
Most people would subscribe to some sort of religious belief. 33 people would be Christian, 21 Muslim, 13 Hindu and 6 Buddhist. A further 12 would follow other religions including Judaism and Sikhism. 2 of the people would be Atheists.
Image via Wikipedia
48 of the people would live in an urban area, and 23 would regularly use the internet, an increase of about 10 people since two years ago. 69 people have mobile and/or landline telephone connections. On the other hand, 14 people wouldn’t have access to an improved water source, the same number as never had the opportunity to complete primary school.
Of adults aged over 15, 63 will be able to read and write to some extent, although upto 17 of these will not be ‘functionally literate’ – they are unable to use what literacy skills they may have in everyday life – meaning that in reality, only 46 of the adults could really be classed as fully literate. Of the ten adults who have no literacy skills at all, at least 6 would be women.
Of adults of working age (15-60), 20 would be unemployed or underemployed. Agriculture and service industries would each provide employment for 16 adults, and 10 would work in manufacturing.
Image via Wikipedia
10 people in the group would be in possession of 85% of the group’s wealth, and of the wealth owned by these 10 people, nearly half would be owned by just one person – no prizes for guessing where that one person would probably come from! 50 of the people barely have 1% of the world’s wealth to share between them.
Over the next two years, those 100 people will experience the birth of four babies and the deaths of two people. One of those deaths will be related to malnutrition. In the same time frame two of the group will become refugees or suffer internal displacement due to conflict or resource scarcity.
Image via Wikipedia
Our world is a diverse, complex and fascinating place. It does us good to look beyond our own cultures and experiences and see what is out there!
Information Sources: CIA World Factbook, Wikipedia, UNESCO, IDB, The World Bank Group. Data used was collected between 2004 and 2008.
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18 Comments
Wow, I’m impressed with the extent of your research. That’s a lot of number crunching.
fascinating numbers! (not good if a catastrophe strikes..)
Excellent bit of research and so emphatically displayed–putting things in perspective for us all. Great write.
Gosh! That really makes you think. As Fegger says it puts life into perspective. Really well done.
Christine
What an unusual and enjoyable article. I like this one very much, Alina. Well done.
Thanks everyone. I did put a fair bit of research into this, and spent a fair while with the calculator, but this is just the kind of factoid-gathering mission that brings joy into my life!!
Thumbs way up- Don’t you just love statistics?
wow… what an article… you published satisfying article…
great article and you have a nice way of getting some statistics.
Puts so much into perspective, well researched article.
interesting concept and well done…….
thats amazing…
Wonderful write and a great job of putting the numbers into perspectives so that I can get my head around it. Some of the thoughts are staggering (e.g., how few people are really literate). It would be interesting to compare against data from, oh, 30 years ago, to see how much progress is being made (or not made). I don’t know if earlier data exists though. Nicely done!
As a person who is always concerned and aware of human over population on a global level – the part that caught my eye was that there are 4 births.. and only 2 deaths…
I really dont know how people can continue to deny that our population isnt growing. sheeesh
anyhow – count our blessings
( I had one kid – then had my tubes tied)
And one will still have crappy dial up internet connection.
ME
What an interesting and intriguing concept. Well thought out and well written.
well i liked it and im still in school, i think when i was only in year 7 mr young deputy teacher said something simular, anyway well researched.
Wow…intriguing and though provoking. This helpes us Americans get a picture of the reality which is al around us and help us to know there is so much more around us than ourselves. Thank you for this research and the critique you provided me also!