12 Positive News Items (if you live in the UK)

Overwhelmingly, the news reports we read in the media are negative and often depressing. As an antidote to this tide of gloom, this post offers 12 refreshingly positive items of news, all backed by research and statistics, that show that many aspects of life are in fact continuing to improve!

1. Declining Drug Abuse:    Drug abuse is declining. The proportion of 16-59 year olds who had taken drugs in the year 2011/12 in England and Wales fell to 8.9%, the lowest level since records began in 1996. There have been suggestions that this is part of a long-term trend of drug use simply falling out of fashion.
2. Safer Roads:     Roads are becoming safer. The number of people killed on Britain’s roads has dropped by 45 percent in the last 10 years. This is a continuation of a downtrend that has been underway since the late 1960s. The peak year for road deaths was 1941 when 9169 people died on Britain’s roads. In 2011, 1901 people died on the roads. This trend has coincided with a reduction in the proportion of cars breaking the speed limit over the last decade, with a fall of more than a quarter in the number of drivers breaking the 30mph limit between 2001 and 2011.
3. Rising Job Satisfaction:     Job satisfaction has risen. A study by the Workplace Employment Relations Study showed that job satisfaction among UK employees rose between 2004 and 2011, despite growing pressure on pay, a perception of diminishing job security and employees saying that they have to work harder. The report found that high levels of job satisfaction reflected a great sense of autonomy and control, better training and a heightened sense of achievement at work.
4. Lower Murder Rates:     The chance of being murdered in England and Wales has fallen to the lowest level since 1978. 549 homicides, including murder, infanticide and manslaughter, were committed in the year to September 2012, around half the level 10 years earlier.
5. Decline in Vandalism:     The level of vandalism has fallen by 38% since the start of the Global Financial Crisis in 2007. Some argue that the decline in graffiti and vandalism reflects the prevalence of smartphones that provide an alternative outlet for teenage energies. Falling crime rates do not reflect a shift to an older population. On the contrary, the population of those aged 15 – the peak age of offending – has been rising.
6. Fewer Teenage Pregnancies:     Teenage pregnancies have fallen. In 2010 the pregnancy rate among under-18s fell at the fastest rate since the mid ’70s taking the pregnancy rate to the lowest level since 1969.
7. Increased Competitiveness for the UK:     The UK has moved up the global competitiveness league table. In the World Economic Forum’s 2012/13 competitiveness ranking the UK rated 8th out of 142 countries. This is rise of two places in a year and puts the UK just behind the US and ahead of a number of countries, including Hong Kong, Canada, Norway and Denmark that are considered to be highly competitive. Switzerland comes top in the WEF ranking.
8. Falling Divorce Rate:     The divorce rate is actually declining! Between 2009 and 2011 the divorce rate in England and Wales fell to the lowest level in 34 years.
9. Less Smoking:    Smoking is continuing to decline. In 2010 21% of the adult population smoked, the lowest rate since records began in 1948.
10. Greater Life Expectancy:     Men and women born today can expect to live significantly longer than those in previous generations. Over the last 50 years (1960-2010) the average life span increased by around 10 years for males and 8 years for females. Data show that mortalities from one of the country’s biggest killers – heart attacks – have halved since 2002. Remarkably, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) have projected that one-third of babies born in the UK in 2012 can expect to survive their 100th birthday, with 455,000 centenarians forecast by 2060.
11. Attitude Shift to Drink & Drugs:     A significant shift in the attitudes of young people to drink and drugs appears to be underway. In a survey of 6500 children in England aged 11 to 15, the proportion that admitted to having taken drugs fell from 29% in 2011 to 17% in 2011. Regular smokers of at least one cigarette a week halved from one in ten to one in twenty. The number who said they had drunk alcohol in the past week was down from 26% to 12%.
12. Rising Employment Stats:     The economy may be weak but employment has confounded economists’ forecasts and risen to record levels. Job creation in the private sector has more than offset job losses in the public sector. Data from the ONS shows that in the three months to October 2012 the number of people in employment rose to 29.6 million, the highest on record.

Of course, statistics don’t tell the whole truth. Part of the problem lies in the sample size and whether it provides an accurate spread and therefore representation of the UK population. Nonetheless, the statistics above provide a refreshing perspective on a variety of issues that frequently come up in the news. Because of the effects of cognitive ease & association, frequent or graphic news stories make it easier to overestimate the seriousness or prevalence of the issues in question. This is why it is often good to get a bigger-picture perspective.

Source for these statistics: Ian Stewart (Deloitte’s Chief Economist in the UK) – the Monday Briefing