for each woman interviewed data on all births, including whether the child survived and if applicable the date of death.<sup>10</sup> Figure 6 plots the one year and the five year survival probability by birth cohort. It should be noted that infant and under-five mortality will tend to be underestimated for earlier birth cohorts. First, since, the surveys interviews women aged 15 to 49 in 2000, the mothers in this sample who gave birth in the 1970s were young at the time. The risk of infant and child mortality tends to increase in the late fertile years of a woman. Second, given the retrospective nature of the birth histories data, only women who survived until 2000 are interviewed. Those women who did not survived until 2000 might have been more likely to have children who died as well.

Despite this underestimation of infant and child mortality for children from earlier cohorts, figure 6 shows that infant and under-five mortality was very high for children born during the 1970-1979 period. For example, a child born between 1975 and 1979, had a 14.8 percent risk of dying within his first year of life and a 22 percent chance not to make it until his fifth birthday (see the detailed data in Table 3). Compared to other birth cohorts, infant mortality peaks for the 1975-79 birth cohort and under-five mortality is higher for the 1970-74<sup>11</sup> and 1975-79 birth cohorts. It is also very striking that for cohorts born during the 1970s, child mortality (mortality between age one and age five) is a substantial component of under-five mortality, whereas for later birth cohorts, most of the mortality is concentrated during the first year of life. During the mortality crisis of the 1970s, the living conditions were such that survival after the first year was also problematic. The analysis did not show significant differences in the infant and underfive mortality across genders.

Figure 7 compares the one year survival probability for children with rural and urban backgrounds<sup>12</sup> and figure 8 proceeds similarly for different schooling levels of the mother. In both cases, there was no statistically significant differences between the two groups for birth cohorts born in the 1970s, whereas, for subsequent birth cohorts, born after the mortality crisis, urban children are less likely to die (the difference is statistically

> 10 One year and five year survival probability could also be calculated from the siblings’ mortality data, but, in order to compare child mortality in 1975-79 with current levels, it is better to use information about the children than about the siblings of women aged 15-49 in 2000, as they are on average younger. Also, it is preferable to use the characteristics of the mother rather than those of the sister, as an explanatory variable.

11 Notice that, especially for the probability to survive the first five years, the 1970-74 birth cohort was at risk during part of the 1975-79 period.

> 12 Notice that, while, when analyzing adult mortality, I used the rural/urban background of the sister during her childhood (only if she was born before 1975), in the analysis of child mortality I am using the current rural/urban location of the mother.

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