The average age for Malawi is 16.4 years of age. This compares with 38.31 in the United States, and 40.4 in the United Kingdom.
The number of Malawians living below the international poverty level of $1.90 a day continues to hover near the 70% mark.
Over 65% of the population can read and write by the time they are 15 years of age. Chichewa is the traditional language of the country, while English is the official language. It is the language of business, medicine, government, and commerce. English is taught to children in the schools. 30% of Malawi’s children do not start primary school primarily because of poverty.
Over 90,000 Malawians between the ages of 15 and 49 live with HIV/AIDS, which accounts for one of every ten adults. More than 50,000 people lose their lives to AIDS each year. This makes Malawi one of the most affected nations in the world. More than 1 million Malawi children are orphans because of HIV/AIDS.
Because of poverty, poor health, the lack of health care, disease, and food shortages the average life expectancy remains at a low of 63 years of age. This is, however, a considerable improvement from the 48 years of age in 1960, according to the World Bank.
Malawi has only 0.5 medical doctors for every 10,000 people, compared with 26.1 in the U.S., according to the World Health Organization.
The inflation rate in Malawi was 11.54% in 2017, 12.42% in 2018, 9.37% in 2019, 8.6% in 2020, and 9.34% in 2021. However, by mid-2022 it reached a rate above 15%.