According to the ILO and UNICEF, about 138 million children were working in 2024, down from around 246 million in 2000, even though the number of children in the world has grown. Schooling, laws and support for families explain the decline. The goal of ending child labour by 2025 was missed, however, and about 54 million children still do hazardous work.
That's the estimate from a WHO-led study published in The Lancet in 2024, covering the half-century since the Expanded Programme on Immunization was launched in 1974. It works out to about six lives saved every minute, mostly infants. The measles vaccine alone accounts for around 60% of those lives.
According to the World Gold Council, about 216,000 tonnes of gold have been mined in all of human history. Because gold is so dense (19.3 tonnes per cubic metre), it would fit in a cube about 22 metres on each side, roughly the height of a seven-storey building. Strikingly, about two-thirds of it has been mined since 1950.