Marlena Maląg graduated in Pedagogy at the Faculty of Humanities of the Higher Teacher Education School in Częstochowa, finished postgraduate studies in mathematics and computer science at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, management at the Poznań University of Technology as well as education management at the Baltic Higher School of Humanities.

For a number of years, she was connected with education, she is a certified teacher. Between 1999 and 2011, she was the director of the John Paul II Middle School and the High School in Ostrów Wielkopolski. Between 2011 and 2012, she was the head of the Department of Education and Sports at the City Hall. From 2012 to 2014 she was the Deputy Mayor of the City of Ostrów Wielkopolski.

Between 2002 and 2006, Marlena Maląg was a member of the Ostrów Wielkopolski city council. From 2006 to 2016 she was a member of the Ostrów Wielkopolski District council (in that period, she was also the deputy chairman of the council and the deputy governor of the Ostrów Wielkopolski District).

In January 2016, Prime Minister Beata Szydło appointed Marlena Maląg the Vice-Voivode of Wielkopolska (a position she held until December 2018).

From October 2018 to October 2019, she was a member of the Wielkopolska Voivodeship Sejmik (regional assembly). In December 2018, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki appointed her the President of the State Fund for Rehabilitation of Disabled People.

During the October 2019 Polish Sejm elections, she was elected a Member of the 9th term Sejm.

The life motto of the new Minister for Family, Labour and Social Policy - Marlena Maląg - are quotes from Saint John Paul II: “Man is great not by reason of what he possesses but by what he is — not by what he has but by what he shares with others,” and “You must be demanding of yourselves, even if others are not demanding of you.” She follows traditional values in her private and professional life.