1in8B › Odds by country › South Africa

If you were born in South Africa

1 in 112 babies on Earth is born in South Africa, about 1.18 million a year. If your birthplace were drawn by lot, you would be born here with a chance of 1 in 112. 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 7.2 years less than the world average: 66.3 years against 73.5 years.
3.5 in 100 children here die before age five, about the world average.
The World Bank classes it as an upper-middle-income country. There are 52 such countries, and 25 in 100 of the world’s babies are born in them.
Women here have 2.2 children on average; the world average is 2.2.
It is one of the ten countries with the most unequal incomes in the world (Gini index 54.1).
It is one of the ten countries where the most people live with HIV: 17.2 in 100 adults.
It is one of the ten countries with the highest homicide rates in the world: 43.7 per 100,000 people a year.
It is one of the ten countries with the highest suicide rates in the world: 22.3 per 100,000 people a year.

The odds in numbers

Indicator	South Africa	World
Births a year	1,182,853	132,315,943
Chance of being born here	1 in 112	—
Life expectancy, men	62.8 years	71 years
Life expectancy, women	69.8 years	75.9 years
Die before age 1, per 100 children	2.4	2.8
Die before age 5, per 100 children	3.5	3.7
Die between ages 15 and 60, per 100 men	35	17
Die between ages 15 and 60, per 100 women	23	11
Maternal deaths per 100,000 births	118	187
Children per woman	2.2	2.2
GDP per person a year, at purchasing power parity	$15,900	$25,400
Income inequality, Gini index (0–100)	54.1	—
Can read and write, per 100 adults	91	86
Average years of schooling, adults	11.6 years	8.4 years
University enrolment, gross ratio (can exceed 100)	24	48
Married before 18, per 100 young women	3.6	16
Live in cities, per 100	64	58
Work in farming, per 100 workers	5.4	27
Working or looking for work, per 100 women	50	48
Living with HIV, per 100 adults aged 15–49	17.2	0.7
Homicides per 100,000 people a year	43.7	4.8
Road deaths per 100,000 people a year	24.9	15
Suicides per 100,000 people a year	22.3	9.1
Use tobacco, per 100 adults	24	20
Born in another country, per 100 residents	4.1	3.7
Life evaluation, 0 to 10	5	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 South Africa 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.

Tebogo Kgosi
Born in 2026 in rural South Africa, into one of the poorest families. Education: finished school. Age at death: 19 years. Cause: AIDS.
Mosa Molefe
Born in 2026 in a small town, South Africa, into a well-off family. Education: doctorate (engineering). 27 years of work, last as office clerk. Widowed. 3 children. 4 grandchildren. Age at death: 73 years. Cause: kidney disease.
Melissa Taylor
Born in 2026 in a small town, South Africa, into one of the poorest families. Education: doctorate (agriculture). 26 years of work. Widowed. Age at death: 100 years. Cause: dementia.

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 112.

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