This is the fifth in a series of Key Facts sheets that IFPRI has produced based on the fifth Malawi Integrated Household Survey of 2019/20. The purpose of the series is to present data relevant to key policy issues on agriculture, food systems, and development topics in Malawi.
Highlights from this key facts sheet include:
- Across a wide range of inequality measures, survey data measure lower levels of inequality in 2019/20 compared to a decade earlier in 2010/11.
- The latest survey data put Malawi’s Gini Coefficient at 0.38. The 20% richest households consume about half of the country’s total consumption. The poorest 20% account for only 6% of total consumption.
- Differences between districts or regions are not the primary contributors to inequality. Differences across households within the same region or district contribute much more to total inequality.
- Similarly, there is significant inequality among households with heads of similar education levels and among those with similar occupations. These within-group differences contribute more to inequality than the across-group differences.
- In all the periods under analysis, urban households consumed around twice the consumption of their rural counterparts.
Read and download the full key facts sheet: Inequality here (PDF 426 KB)
Author: Emmanuel Hami
