Analysts can use several economic indicators to gauge a country’s health. One is the infant mortality rate, which is the number of deaths of infants under the age of one per 1000 live births. The FRED map above shows this rate across the world in 1970.

The second FRED map, above, shows real GDP per capita across the world for the same year. This is a common way of measuring standard of living. We can see an obvious correlation between these two maps, where countries in darker green have both high infant mortality and low real GDP per capita. Does this correlation still hold a half century later?

Our third FRED map, above, shows infant mortality in 2023. We kept the colors consistent with those used for the 1970 map, which allows us to see immediately that the infant mortality rate has decreased notably over time.

Our last map, above, shows real GDP per capita in 2023. While richer countries have lower mortality rates, the map suggests that the correlation between greater wealth and lower infant mortality has changed: The health of some countries has improved substantially over time without much change in their wealth.

How these maps were created: Search FRED for “infant mortality rate” and select any country. Then click on the “Map” button. Select your year, then click on “Edit Map” and customize the interval values as 16, 40, 100, 150, and 250. For the other maps, search for “constant GDP per capita.” Here we changed the map colors so that the better statistics are lighter, as with the first map, and customized our interval values.

Suggested by Dawn Chinagorom-Abiakalam and B. Ravikumar.