Extreme Poverty in Cameroon: 1800 to Today (and Tomorrow)

To live within the data of extreme poverty is to experience the material limits of history. Defining this as living on less than .15/day, 2017 PPP, reveals a world where basic needs remain perpetually out of reach. For generations, the struggle for resources was not an anomaly but a daily reality. Today, the figure stands at 35 %, yet this percentage masks the immense individual effort required to secure a stable life when one of every three people still lives below the international extreme poverty line.

For the entirety of the 1800s, the rate of extreme poverty remained constant at 80 %. The 1900s began a slow transition; the early decades saw only fractional movement before the decline accelerated. By the 1960s, the rate had reached 68.33 %, falling further to 55 % by the 1980s. Projections suggest this trajectory will continue, with the figure potentially dropping to 3.5 % by the 2100s, fundamentally altering the country’s demographic landscape across three centuries.

If you were born in Cameroon during the 1800s, your life was defined by an 80 % probability of extreme poverty. For a child born in the 2020s, the environment is statistically different, as the rate has dropped to 35 %, ranking the nation #125 of 157 countries. While the data points toward a more prosperous future, these shifts serve as a cold reminder of the human scale of economic change.

Use our interactive tool to see where you rank among everyone ever born.