Life in Sri Lanka: Every Number That Shapes It (1800–2100)

To understand the human experience in Sri Lanka, we must look past abstract indicators to the lived reality of its people. Life expectancy has reached 70 years, while the prevalence of extreme poverty has dropped from 70 to 10 %. These figures reflect a profound shift in daily survival, where the burden of child mortality has fallen from 280 to 38 per 1,000 births. While electricity at home has climbed to 91 %, the underlying rhythm of daily labor remains steady, with annual working hours shifting only from 2,300 to 2,250.

The historical arc of the nation traces a trajectory of modernization across three centuries. In the 1950s, the average person saw a life expectancy of 36 and an income per person of 1,000 intl-$. Today, those metrics have reached 70 years and 5,500 intl-$. Education has expanded from 1.2 to 6.5 years of schooling, mirroring the transition toward a more connected society, where internet access has risen from 0 to 35 %. The population has also shifted, with the percentage of people living in cities rising from 16 to 35 %.

For a child born in the 2020s, the world is markedly different from that of their predecessors. They enter an environment where the average male height has increased from 162 to 165 cm and family sizes have contracted from 6 to 2.3 children per woman. Even as social structures evolve, the homicide rate has shown a comparative stability, moving from 4.5 to 3.5 per 100,000. You are invited to explore the data to compute your own parallel lives.