|
This is an update of my annual CD post on Nobel Prizes, see last year’s post here.
The top map above showing Nobel Prizes by regions around the world was inspired by a similar one featured in an October 15, 2013, Washington Post article by Max Fisher (now at the NY Times) titled “The Amazing history of the Nobel Prize, told in map and charts.”
According to this Nobel website 950 Laureates (896 men and 54 women) from 79 different countries and 27 organizations have been awarded the Nobel Prize between 1901 and 2019. Of them, 79 are Laureates in Economic Sciences. A small number of individuals (four) and organizations (two) have been honored more than once, which means that 946 individuals and 24 unique organizations have received the Nobel Prize in total.
Looking back on the 119-year history of Nobel Prizes, here are my top ten most interesting observations about Nobel Prizes and the 946 Nobel laureates based on the maps above, and the underlying data for laureates by country, gender, religion, research affiliation, and age.
1. Western Countries Dominate Nobel Awards. The top map above shows the number of Nobel Prizes awarded to individual laureates in eight geographical areas and one country (South Africa, since that one country represents most of the awards for Africa), based on this list of Nobel laureates by country. The list includes a total of 1,127 country affiliations for Nobel Prizes because some of the 946 Nobel laureates are listed for more than one country when the official Nobel website mentions multiple countries — usually the country of birth and the country where the laureate resides when the prize is awarded. For example, five Nobel laureates this year have dual-country affiliations: James Peebles for physics (born in Canada, now at Princeton), John Goodenough for chemistry (born in Germany, now at Univesity of Texas-Austin), Esther Duflo (born in France, now at MIT), Abhijit Banerjee (born in India, now at MIT) and Didier Queloz (born in Switzerland, now at the University of Cambridge in the UK).
One of the most interesting observations about the map above is that it shows that just two areas of the world: a) the US and Canada (412 laureates) and b) Western Europe (503 laureates) together represent the vast majority of the 1,127 country affiliations associated with Nobel laureates, and more than 81% of the total number of laureates since 1901. When the 15 Nobel laureates from Australia and New Zealand are included, the share of Nobel Prizes awarded to laureates in Western countries (930) increases to 82.5%.
The second (proportional) map above is redrawn to show the relative size of each geographic area based on the number of Nobel Prizes received, and helps to further illustrate graphically the dominance of US/Canada and Western Europe for Nobel laureates (and organizations) – those two areas represent more than 81% of the world map.
2. Top Ten Nobel-Winning Countries. The United States is by far the world’s leading country for receiving Nobel Prizes with an astonishing 385 individual laureates over the last 119 years (and 41% of all 946 laureates), which is almost three times more than the second-highest ranked country — the United Kingdom, with 133 awards (see table above). Following the UK is No. 3 Germany (109 awards), No. 4 France (70), and No. 5 Sweden (31). Next comes Japan at No. 6 with 29 Nobel Prize recipients, followed closely by Switzerland (28), Canada (27), Russia/Soviet Union (26) and Austria (22).
To put the dominance of the United States winning Nobel prizes in perspective, American laureates have received more Nobel awards (385) than the 372 prizes awarded to laureates in the next five countries combined (UK, Germany, France, Sweden, and Japan). To put the dominance of the top two countries in perspective, laureates from the US and UK together have received 518 Nobel Prizes, which is more than half (54.8%) of all the 946 laureates since 1901, and individuals in the top three countries (US, UK, and Germany) have together won 627 Nobel Prizes, or more than two-thirds (66.3%) of all awards.
Here’s a list of Nobel Prizes per capita.
3. Latin America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East together account for only 119 Nobel Prizes by country in total (10.6% of the 1,127 total), even though those areas together represent about 85% of the world’s population.
4. Asia. Laureates in Asia alone have received 57 Nobel prizes, or 5.1% of the total prizes by country affiliation with nearly 55% of the world’s population. Nobel Prizes for Japanese laureates (29) represent more than half of all Asian awards, followed by India (11) and China (8). Adjusted for the huge population of Asia (more than 4 billion), the number of Asian laureates per 100 million population of 1.45 is only slightly higher than the number of African laureates per 100 million (1.42).
5. Middle East. Countries in the Middle East have received 22 Nobel Prizes, with more than half (12) of the awards going to Israeli laureates. Of the 22 Nobel laureates from the Middle East, more than half (12) received either the literature (3) or peace prize (9). For the remaining 10 Nobel Prizes in medicine, chemistry, physics, and economics, 8 of those laureates were Israeli, one is Egyptian (chemistry) and one is Turkish (chemistry).
6. Africa is the region of the world with the fewest Nobel Prizes – only 18 in total, and only 8 outside of South Africa, even though Africa has a population of about 1 billion. Adjusted for population, both the US/Canada and Western Europe have been awarded more than 100 Nobel Prizes per 100 million people, compared to only 1.41 Nobel Prizes awarded per 100 million Africans. As mentioned above, Africa (1.41) is just slightly behind Asia (1.45) for laureates per 100 million population.
7. Jewish Nobel Laureates. Interestingly, Jews and people of Jewish descent represent less than 0.20% of the world’s population, but they represent 21% of all Nobel laureates (199 out of 946). Last year, there were two Jewish Nobel laureates, Arthur Ashkin (physics) and William Nordhaus (economics), and this year there were none. Here are the Jewish shares of the six individual Nobel Prizes:
a. Economics: 30 out of 84 or 35.7% (179 times the Jewish share of the population) b. Medicine: 54 out of 219, or 24.7% (123 times the Jewish share of the population) c. Physics: 56 out of 213 or 26.3% (131 times their share of the population) d. Chemistry: 35 out of 184 or 19.0% (95 times their share of the population) e. Literature: 15 out of 116 or 12.9% (65 times their share of the population) f. Peace: 9 out of 107 or 8.4% (more than 42 times their share of the population)
8. Nobel Laureates by Gender. Men have been awarded 896 Nobel Prizes compared to only 54 prizes awarded to female laureates (see chart above). By percentage, men have received 94.4% of all Nobel awards to individuals compared to 5.6% for women, which is a male-female Nobel Prize ratio of nearly 17-to-1. By field, women have received Nobel Prizes as follows:
a. Physics: 3 b. Chemistry: 5 c. Medicine: 12 d. Literature: 15 e. Peace: 17 f. Economics: 2
Note that 32 of the 54 female laureates received a Nobel Prize for either literature or peace, and those two categories together represent 62% of the total female Nobel laureates. This year, only one of the 14 Nobel laureates is female (Esther Duflo in economics), compared to four female laureates last year for chemistry, physics, literature, and peace. Previously, all 11 Nobel laureates in both 2016 and 2017 were male; there were 8 men and 2 women in 2015; 11 men and 2 women in 2014; and 11 men and 1 woman in 2013. The record for the most Nobel prizes awarded to women in a single year was set in 2009 when there were five female laureates out of 13 total.
9. Research Affiliations of Nobel Laureates. The table above shows the top ten research affiliations of Nobel laureates at the time of the announcement.
10. Nobel Prizes by Age. Nobel Prizes have been awarded to laureates as young as 17-year old Malala Yousafzai (Peace prize in 2014) and as old as 97-year old John Goodenough, one of the winners of this year’s Nobel Prize for chemistry and one year older than the previous oldest lauretate — Arthur Ashkin who shared the 2018 Nobel prize in physics. Based on the full list of laureates by age, the chart below shows the age distribution of the 950 Nobel laureates, whose median age was 60.4 years old when they received the Nobel award. By individual age, there are more laureates who received a Nobel Prize at age 61 or 63 years (34 individuals for each age) than any other age, followed by ages 56 years (32 laureates) and 60 years (31 laureates).
As of today, all of the 2019 Nobel Prizes have now been announced, and this post reviews the remarkable history of the Nobel Prize from 1901-2019 using maps, charts, and tables to help summarize my ten most interesting observations about the 950 individual Nobel laureates by country, geographical region, gender, religion, research affiliation, and age.
|
|
