1in8B › Odds by country › DR Congo

If you were born in the DR Congo

1 in 30 babies on Earth is born in the DR Congo, about 4.47 million a year. If your birthplace were drawn by lot, you would be born here with a chance of 1 in 30. Below is what awaits a child born here, according to the statistics, and three lives lived here in the game.

What stands out here

People here live 11.4 years less than the world average: 62.1 years against 73.5 years.
9 in 100 children here die before age five, 2.4 times the world average.
The World Bank classes it as a low-income country. There are 25 such countries, and 19 in 100 of the world’s babies are born in them.
Women here have 6.0 children on average; the world average is 2.2.
Child mortality here is among the ten highest in the world.
The birth rate here is among the ten highest in the world.
By income per person, it is one of the ten poorest countries in the world: $1,920 a year.

The odds in numbers

Indicator	DR Congo	World
Births a year	4,467,760	132,315,943
Chance of being born here	1 in 30	—
Life expectancy, men	60 years	71 years
Life expectancy, women	64.2 years	75.9 years
Die before age 1, per 100 children	5.6	2.8
Die before age 5, per 100 children	9	3.7
Die between ages 15 and 60, per 100 men	29	17
Die between ages 15 and 60, per 100 women	22	11
Maternal deaths per 100,000 births	427	187
Children per woman	6.0	2.2
GDP per person a year, at purchasing power parity	$1,920	$25,400
Income inequality, Gini index (0–100)	44.7	—
Can read and write, per 100 adults	69	86
Average years of schooling, adults	7.4 years	8.4 years
University enrolment, gross ratio (can exceed 100)	6	48
Married before 18, per 100 young women	30	16
Live in cities, per 100	45	58
Work in farming, per 100 workers	59	27
Working or looking for work, per 100 women	62	48
Living with HIV, per 100 adults aged 15–49	0.7	0.7
Homicides per 100,000 people a year	4.4	4.8
Road deaths per 100,000 people a year	16.3	15
Suicides per 100,000 people a year	8.8	9.1
Use tobacco, per 100 adults	12	20
Born in another country, per 100 residents	1	3.7
Life evaluation, 0 to 10	3.8	5.4

“World” is the average weighted by population, and by births for child and maternal mortality. ≈ marks an estimate: there is no published figure for this country.

Three lives lived here in the game

This is how the life of a child born in the DR Congo could turn out. The game lived 20 lives on its own, with no player, by this country’s numbers. Here are three of them: one of the shortest, the middle one and one of the longest.

Moïse Nsimba
Born in 2026 in Kananga, DR Congo, into a family of modest means. Education: finished school. 33 years of work, last as truck driver. Married. 6 children. 7 grandchildren. Age at death: 51 years. Cause: a heart attack.
Joseph Mbuyi
Born in 2026 in Kinshasa, DR Congo, into a well-off family. Education: finished school. 49 years of work, last as company director. Married. 5 children. 31 grandchildren. Age at death: 67 years. Cause: liver cirrhosis.
Serge Tshisekedi
Born in 2026 in rural DR Congo, into one of the poorest families. Education: primary school. 52 years of work. Moved to the United Arab Emirates. Widowed. Age at death: 86 years. Cause: a stroke.

These people are made up, and three lives are not statistics. The real numbers are in the table above.

You cannot pick a country in 1in8B: the draw decides. This one comes up with a chance of 1 in 30.

Be born

Other countries

Data: the UN, the World Bank (release of October 8, 2026), WHO, UNICEF, UNESCO, the ILO and the World Happiness Report. Where the numbers come from and what in the game is real