Average Height in Ethiopia (Men & Women)

The average height in Ethiopia

Ethiopian men born in 1996 reach an average adult height of 166.2 cm (5′5″), and Ethiopian women 155.7 cm (5′1″), according to the NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC). In 2016 the consortium combined 1,472 measurement studies covering more than 18.6 million people to estimate adult height by year of birth, from 1896 to 1996, in 200 countries.

Ethiopian men rank 168th of 200 and Ethiopian women 162nd. Both are in the lower part of the world table, and close together, with Ethiopian women placing slightly higher. The gap between men and women is 10.5 cm, narrower than in many countries.

The site's 166 cm page is a near match for the average Ethiopian man, and 155 cm for the average Ethiopian woman.

What these estimates represent

NCD-RisC estimates the adult height, at age 18, of each birth cohort, the people born in a particular year. "Born in 1996" is the latest cohort in the study. Ethiopians born in earlier decades grew up in different conditions, and as the next section shows, some of those older cohorts were actually taller.

The estimates are built only from surveys that measured height, using representative samples of the general population. A Bayesian hierarchical model combines them and fills gaps by sharing information within regions. The NCD-RisC authors acknowledge that data for some countries were limited or came from sub-national or community studies, which applies to several East African countries. That makes the uncertainty around Ethiopia's estimate wider than for countries with long histories of national health examinations.

A century of rise and modest decline

Ethiopians grew taller through the first half of the century. Men gained 7.1 cm between the 1896 and 1956 cohorts and women 5.1 cm. Gains then stalled. Men peaked at 168.7 cm in the 1976 cohort and women at 157.3 cm in the 1956 cohort. By the 1996 cohort, men were 2.5 cm below their peak and women 1.6 cm below theirs. Across the full century, the net gain is 4.9 cm for men and 3.5 cm for women.

This rise and fall is a hallmark of much of sub-Saharan Africa. NCD-RisC reported that adult height decreased or at best stayed the same in many sub-Saharan African countries for people born after the early 1960s, by about 5 cm from the peak in some, such as Niger, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Uganda. Ethiopia's decline is smaller than that, but it follows the same timing. The researchers note that the reversal wiped out or reduced Africa's earlier height advantage over Asia, and cite earlier studies showing child stunting in sub-Saharan Africa rising until the mid-1990s.

Our World in Data, summarizing the research, mentions one possible explanation for falling adult heights in the region during a period of improving health: child survival selection. As more vulnerable children survive infancy, they join the adult population and can pull its average height down. It is a hypothesis rather than a proven cause for Ethiopia, but it shows why a lower adult average does not necessarily mean childhood conditions got worse.

The Ethiopia Demographic and Health Survey

Ethiopia's main source of measured height and weight is the Ethiopia Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS), conducted by the Central Statistical Agency with technical assistance from ICF through the DHS program. The 2016 EDHS measured women aged 15–49, men aged 15–59 and children under five.

For women, DHS surveys report the share with short stature (under 145 cm) rather than a mean height. In Ethiopia only 2.4% of the 15,114 women measured fell below that line, a very low figure by global standards. In India's NFHS-5 it was 11.5%, and in Bangladesh's 2017–18 DHS 13.7%.

The differences are small in absolute terms, but they follow the familiar pattern. Short stature is more common in rural areas, among women with less schooling and in poorer households. One detail is worth noting. Teenage girls aged 15–19 had a slightly higher share under 145 cm (2.9%) than women in their forties (2.3%). Some of these girls may still be growing, so the comparison is not conclusive, but it is consistent with the NCD-RisC finding that recent Ethiopian cohorts are no taller than older ones.

Regional differences

Amhara, Tigray and the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' Region (SNNPR) had the highest shares of short women, at just under 3%. The Somali region had almost none. Some regional samples were small, so the smaller regions' figures should be read cautiously.

Thin bodies, not just short ones

The EDHS shows that Ethiopia's main adult nutrition issue is thinness rather than short stature. Among women aged 15–49, the mean BMI was 20.7, and 22% were thin (BMI under 18.5), while only 8% were overweight or obese. Among men aged 15–49, the mean BMI was 19.6 and about one in three (33%) were thin.

The trends point toward gradual improvement. The share of thin women fell from 30% in 2000 to 22% in 2016, and the share who were overweight or obese rose from 3% to 8%. Thinness was most common among teenage girls (29%) and among women in rural areas. Overweight and obesity rose sharply with education and wealth.

Height and BMI measure different things. Height reflects growth in childhood. BMI reflects a person's weight for their height now. A population can be relatively tall and thin, or short and heavy.

Child stunting: a long decline

Ethiopia has one of the most striking records of reducing child stunting in Africa. The 2016 EDHS found 38% of children under five stunted (too short for their age) and 18% severely stunted. The survey report describes the trend as a considerable fall from 58% in 2000, an average decline of more than one percentage point a year. Over the same period, underweight fell from 41% to 24%, while wasting changed little and was 10% in 2016.

WHO and UNICEF survey estimates compiled by Our World in Data give the longer view:

Within Ethiopia, the EDHS found stunting rising sharply between 6 and 23 months of age and peaking in the third year of life, which the report links to undernutrition in the first 1,000 days. Amhara, Benishangul-Gumuz, Affar and Dire Dawa had the highest stunting rates, at 41–46%. The survey also documents the feeding gaps behind those numbers. Only 7% of children aged 6–23 months met the minimum acceptable diet, and only 14% had an adequately diverse diet.

Our World in Data notes that most stunting happens in the first two years and that some catch-up growth is possible when conditions improve. The 1996 cohort in NCD-RisC grew up when roughly two-thirds of young Ethiopian children were stunted. Children growing up today face much lower rates, which should eventually show up in taller adults, though measured data for cohorts born after 1996 is not yet in the NCD-RisC series.

Other markers of child nutrition

The 2016 survey measured several other conditions that research links to how well children grow. More than half of children aged 6–59 months (57%) were anaemic, as were 24% of women aged 15–49. Only 58% of infants under six months were exclusively breastfed. On the positive side, 89% of households used iodised salt for cooking. None of these alone sets a child's adult height, but together they describe the environment in which today's young Ethiopians are growing, and they suggest where future gains in height could come from.

The survey's measurement rules are standard across DHS countries. Women who were pregnant or had given birth in the two months before the interview were excluded from the BMI figures, because pregnancy changes weight. Height, which pregnancy does not affect, was analyzed for all women aged 15–49. Children's heights were compared with the WHO growth standards, and a child more than two standard deviations below the median height for their age was counted as stunted.

Ethiopia among its neighbors

Ethiopia sits in a tight cluster with its Horn of Africa neighbors. Somalia, Sudan and Djibouti are all within half a centimeter for both sexes. Kenya is the tallest in the group, 3.4 cm ahead for men. Uganda, which NCD-RisC names among the countries with the steepest recent declines, is now slightly shorter for men but taller for women. The average height by country hub has the full 200-country list.

What it means day to day

For Ethiopians, useful benchmarks are about 166 cm (5′5″) for men and 156 cm (5′1″) for women born in the 1990s. A man of 175 cm or a woman of 165 cm would be clearly tall by national standards. To compare any height with reference data, try the height percentile calculator.

The bigger story is change. Ethiopia's adults born in the 1990s are slightly shorter than their parents' generation, but the steep fall in child stunting since the early 1990s points to taller Ethiopians in the cohorts that follow.