US vs China: 6 everyday life measures compared

As of October 2026, the latest World Bank and United Nations figures leave the United States and China level on a simple count: each leads on three of six everyday measures. The widest gap is safe toilets. In the United States, 97 percent of people use a toilet whose waste is safely handled. In China the share is 69 percent, a gap of 28 points.

China is ahead on the other three measures. 97 percent of its one-year-olds have had three doses of the DTP vaccine, against 94 percent in the United States. China has 47 home broadband subscriptions for every 100 people, against 39 in the United States. And 59 percent of Chinese women work or are looking for work, against 57 percent of American women.

The United States leads on two further measures. All of its people, 100 percent, cook with clean fuels and technologies, against 90 percent in China. College places equal 79 percent of the college-age population in the United States and 72 percent in China. That figure is a gross rate: it counts every enrolled student, of any age, against the number of people of college age.

These numbers come from the World Bank's World Development Indicators and the United Nations SDG database. Both pass on figures from WHO and UNICEF, the International Telecommunication Union, the International Labour Organization and UNESCO. Each figure was checked against two of these publishers. Most are modelled or survey-based estimates, so treat them as close, not exact. All are rounded to whole numbers. Each uses the latest year both countries report: 2024, except college places, which is 2022.

The chart puts both countries on one scale from 0 to 100. A bigger shape means more of the people covered, so it is not an overall ranking. A large gap on one measure can sit beside a small gap on another, and a measure near 100 for both, like baby vaccines, leaves little room to tell them apart. Compare each measure on its own before drawing a bigger conclusion.