1in8B › Odds by country › Niger

If you were born in Niger

1 in 118 babies on Earth is born in Niger, about 1.12 million a year. If your birthplace were drawn by lot, you would be born here with a chance of 1 in 118. 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 12 years less than the world average: 61.5 years against 73.5 years.
11 in 100 children here die before age five, 3 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 5.9 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.
Literacy here is among the ten lowest in the world: 36 in 100 adults can read and write.
It is one of the ten countries where child marriage is most common: 76 in 100 girls marry before 18.

The odds in numbers

Indicator	Niger	World
Births a year	1,119,683	132,315,943
Chance of being born here	1 in 118	—
Life expectancy, men	60.5 years	71 years
Life expectancy, women	62.4 years	75.9 years
Die before age 1, per 100 children	6.6	2.8
Die before age 5, per 100 children	11	3.7
Die between ages 15 and 60, per 100 men	22	17
Die between ages 15 and 60, per 100 women	18	11
Maternal deaths per 100,000 births	350	187
Children per woman	5.9	2.2
GDP per person a year, at purchasing power parity	$2,180	$25,400
Income inequality, Gini index (0–100)	32.9	—
Can read and write, per 100 adults	36	86
Average years of schooling, adults	1.4 years	8.4 years
University enrolment, gross ratio (can exceed 100)	4	48
Married before 18, per 100 young women	76	16
Live in cities, per 100	18	58
Work in farming, per 100 workers	73	27
Working or looking for work, per 100 women	73	48
Living with HIV, per 100 adults aged 15–49	0.2	0.7
Homicides per 100,000 people a year	9.2	4.8
Road deaths per 100,000 people a year	24.9	15
Suicides per 100,000 people a year	4.5	9.1
Use tobacco, per 100 adults	7.4	20
Born in another country, per 100 residents	1.7	3.7
Life evaluation, 0 to 10	4.9	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 Niger 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.

Musa Shehu
Born in 2026 in Niamey, Niger, into one of the poorest families. Education: never went to school. 34 years of work, last as farmer with your own land and hired help. Married. 5 children. 1 grandchild. Age at death: 47 years. Cause: a heart attack.
Zainab Oumarou
Born in 2026 in rural Niger, into one of the poorest families. Education: primary school. 54 years of work. Married. 9 children. 36 grandchildren. Age at death: 70 years. Cause: a stroke.
Bilkisu Seyni
Born in 2026 in Niamey, Niger, into one of the poorest families. Education: never went to school. 56 years of work. Widowed. 4 children. 13 grandchildren. Age at death: 83 years. Cause: a heart attack.

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 118.

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