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By the LessPix editorial team · Reviewed August 2026 · Editorial & citation policy

Statistics · reviewed August 2026 · every figure sourced · not medical advice

Myopia statistics

Reference numbers for the nearsightedness epidemic: the global curve, the East Asian precedent, Western trends, and the pandemic's measured effect on children's eyes.

The global curve

20%29%38%46%55%2000: 23%200023%2010: 28%20102020: 34%20202030: 40%20302040: 45%20402050: 50%205050%projection from 2020
Share of world population with myopia. Values through 2010 are estimates from pooled studies; 2020 onward are the paper's projections. Source: Holden et al., Ophthalmology, 2016 doi:10.1016/j.ophtha.2016.01.006.
YearPrevalencePeople (approx.)
200022.9%1.4 billion
201028.3%2.0 billion
202034.0%2.6 billion
203039.9%3.4 billion
204045.2%4.1 billion
205049.8%4.8 billion

The same paper projects 9.8% of the world with high myopia by 2050 — the severe form carrying elevated lifetime risk of retinal detachment, myopic maculopathy and glaucoma.

What individual studies found

Different populations, ages and years — deliberately not drawn on one chart.

FindingPopulationSource
96.5% myopic19-year-old male conscripts, Seoul, South Korea Jung et al., IOVS, 2012
≈84% myopic18-year-olds, Taiwan (national surveys) Lin et al., 2004
80–90% myopicyoung adults finishing secondary school, urban East Asia Morgan et al., Lancet, 2012
25.0% → 41.6%US adults 12–54, 1971–72 vs 1999–2004 (NHANES) Vitale et al., Arch Ophthalmol, 2009
≈47% myopicEuropean adults aged 25–29 (pooled E3 cohorts) Williams et al., 2015

The pandemic experiment

≈3×myopia prevalence in six-year-olds after 2020 home confinement (21.5% vs ~5.7% in prior years), 123,535 children screened
6–8the ages where the shift concentrated — the youngest, fastest-growing eyes

Months of indoor, screen-heavy schooling produced a measurable myopic shift in the youngest children — the cleanest natural experiment yet on environment and eye growth (Wang et al., JAMA Ophthalmology, 2021).

The counterweight

The one prevention with randomized-trial support is time outdoors in daylight for children — roughly a quarter fewer new cases from one added outdoor school period per day in the Guangzhou trial (He et al., JAMA, 2015). The full evidence, mechanism and family playbook: the two-hour outdoor rule.

Adults: the growth window has closed, so these prevention numbers are about your children — but digital eye strain is very much an adult problem, and household screen culture is set by adults. Start with the family agreement.

Citing this page

Journalists, teachers and researchers are welcome to cite or reproduce these figures with attribution. Suggested format:

LessPix. "Myopia Statistics." lesspix.com, reviewed Aug 2026. https://lesspix.com/stats/myopia/

Every figure above links to its primary source — citing the original study alongside us is even better.

Sources

  1. Holden BA, et al. Ophthalmology. 2016;123(5):1036–1042. doi:10.1016/j.ophtha.2016.01.006
  2. Morgan IG, Ohno-Matsui K, Saw SM. Myopia. Lancet. 2012;379:1739–1748. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(12)60272-4
  3. Jung SK, et al. IOVS. 2012. doi
  4. Lin LL, et al. Prevalence of myopia in Taiwanese schoolchildren: 1983 to 2000. 2004. doi
  5. Vitale S, Sperduto RD, Ferris FL. Increased prevalence of myopia in the United States between 1971–1972 and 1999–2004. Arch Ophthalmol. 2009;127(12):1632–1639. doi
  6. Williams KM, et al. (European Eye Epidemiology / E3). 2015. Scholar
  7. Wang J, et al. JAMA Ophthalmol. 2021;139(3):293–300. doi:10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2020.6239
  8. He M, et al. JAMA. 2015;314(11):1142–1148. doi:10.1001/jama.2015.10803

Not medical advice; see the disclaimer.