Random Data Points

Random data points. I could not find appropriate sources for all of these data points but they were on the Web so they must be true.

The average life expectancy for Canadians is 80 years. The average Botswanan will reach just 39. During the Roman Empire, life expectancy was 22 years; 1500 years later, it reached 33.

A third of the world’s obese people live in the developing world.

The US and Britain have the highest teen pregnancy rates in the developing world. For every 1,000 American women aged between fifteen and nineteen, there was 52.1 births, compared with 2.9 in Korea and 4.6 in Japan.

China has 44 million missing women. For every 100 baby girls born in China in 2000, there were 116.8 baby boys. In China and India, sex-selective abortions are illegal but still common. China’s ‘one child’ policy has meant that many births go unreported; these unregistered children won’t be able to, for example, go to school or receive state-funded healthcare.

Brazil has more Avon ladies than members of its armed services. 450,000 personnel on active service, and 700,000 revendadoras (a.k.a. Avon ladies). Global beauty market is $95 billion and growing 7% every year. Avon’s own research shows that 90% of Brazilian women considered beauty products to be a necessity, not a luxury.

Eighty-one percent of the world’s executions in 2002 took place in just three countries: China, Iran and the USA. A Gallup poll in 2003 showed that 74 percent of Americans support capital punishment for those convicted of murder. In China, most executions take place after rallies in front of massive crowds and prisoners are often paraded through the streets on their way to their final destination.

British supermarkets know more about their consumers than the British government does. Loyalty cards gather sophisticated information about spending patterns.

Every cow in the European Union is subsidised by $2.50 a day. That’s more than what 75 per cent of Africans have to live on. World Bank reports that Japanese cows get $7.50 per day.

One in five of the world’s people live on less than a $1/day.