1in8B › Odds by country › Mozambique

If you were born in Mozambique

1 in 103 babies on Earth is born in Mozambique, about 1.28 million a year. If your birthplace were drawn by lot, you would be born here with a chance of 1 in 103. 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 9.9 years less than the world average: 63.6 years against 73.5 years.
5.9 in 100 children here die before age five, 1.6 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 4.7 children on average; the world average is 2.2.
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: $1,700 a year.
It is one of the ten countries where child marriage is most common: 48 in 100 girls marry before 18.
It is one of the ten countries where the most people work in farming: 73 in 100 workers.

The odds in numbers

Indicator	Mozambique	World
Births a year	1,282,345	132,315,943
Chance of being born here	1 in 103	—
Life expectancy, men	60.5 years	71 years
Life expectancy, women	66.7 years	75.9 years
Die before age 1, per 100 children	4.4	2.8
Die before age 5, per 100 children	5.9	3.7
Die between ages 15 and 60, per 100 men	31	17
Die between ages 15 and 60, per 100 women	18	11
Maternal deaths per 100,000 births	99	187
Children per woman	4.7	2.2
GDP per person a year, at purchasing power parity	$1,700	$25,400
Income inequality, Gini index (0–100)	49.6	—
Can read and write, per 100 adults	62	86
Average years of schooling, adults	4.6 years	8.4 years
University enrolment, gross ratio (can exceed 100)	8	48
Married before 18, per 100 young women	48	16
Live in cities, per 100	37	58
Work in farming, per 100 workers	73	27
Working or looking for work, per 100 women	77	48
Living with HIV, per 100 adults aged 15–49	11.5	0.7
Homicides per 100,000 people a year	2.6	4.8
Road deaths per 100,000 people a year	19.9	15
Suicides per 100,000 people a year	10.6	9.1
Use tobacco, per 100 adults	11	20
Born in another country, per 100 residents	1	3.7
Life evaluation, 0 to 10	5.3	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 Mozambique 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.

Nelson Zandamela
Born in 2026 in Quelimane, Mozambique, into a family of modest means. Education: never went to school. 37 years of work, last as owner of a small shop. 1 child. Age at death: 52 years. Cause: a stroke.
Albino Chauque
Born in 2026 in Nampula, Mozambique, into a family of modest means. Education: never went to school. 51 years of work. Widowed. 6 children. 26 grandchildren. Age at death: 69 years. Cause: a heart attack.
Adilson Chissano
Born in 2026 in rural Mozambique, into one of the richest families. Education: finished school. 51 years of work. Divorced. 2 children. 12 grandchildren. Age at death: 92 years. Cause: old age, in sleep.

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 103.

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