Society · Under-five mortality · Malawi
Malawi’s under-five mortality fell to 48.8 per 1,000 live births in 2024.
48.8 per 1,000 live births
2024
Down 0.8 per 1,000 live births from 2023.
Updated 18 Oct 2026
In plain words
48.8 per 1,000 live births
What it is. Under-five mortality is the chance that a child born alive dies before their fifth birthday, expressed per 1,000 live births. It is an estimate built from birth histories in household surveys and from census and registration data, because many child deaths in low-income countries are never formally recorded. It covers deaths from birth to age five, so it combines newborn deaths with those from infections, malnutrition and malaria in early childhood. The figure is a national average and hides differences between districts and households.
Lower is better. Every death counted here is a child lost, so a lower rate means more children survive to school age and the measure improves as it falls. Malawi's latest figure is 48.8 per 1,000 live births for 2024, down from 49.6 per 1,000 live births a year earlier, a fall of 1.6%. It is the lowest value since 2015, when the rate stood at 57.4 per 1,000 live births, the highest in that span. The latest reading therefore sits at the best end of its own range since 2015.
Why it matters. At 48.8 per 1,000 live births, roughly one child in twenty born in Malawi does not reach their fifth birthday. For families this means the risk of losing a young child from preventable illness is still real, especially where clinics are far away. For the state, each further fall depends on sustained spending on vaccination, malaria control and maternal and newborn care.
| Period | Under-five mortality · Malawi |
|---|---|
| 2015 | 57.4 per 1,000 live births |
| 2016 | 55.8 per 1,000 live births |
| 2017 | 53.8 per 1,000 live births |
| 2018 | 52 per 1,000 live births |
| 2019 | 51.3 per 1,000 live births |
| 2020 | 50.4 per 1,000 live births |
| 2021 | 50 per 1,000 live births |
| 2022 | 50.1 per 1,000 live births |
| 2023 | 49.6 per 1,000 live births |
| 2024 | 48.8 per 1,000 live births |
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators (CC BY 4.0) · Licence: CC BY 4.0
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Strata-AF™ Data, Under-five mortality, Malawi, 2024; source World Bank, World Development Indicators (CC BY 4.0), retrieved 18 Oct 2026; https://data.strata-af.com/society/under-five-mortality/malawi
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Methodology
Probability of dying before the age of five, per 1,000 live births. Unit: per 1,000 live births.
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators (series SH.DYN.MORT), retrieved through the World Bank API and published under CC BY 4.0. Updated annually; the World Bank's own source notes apply.