Child Survival in urban Bangladesh: are the migrants and poor disadvantaged?

M. Mazharul Islam, University of Dhaka

This paper analyses the levels and trends and determinats of childhood mortality in urban Bangladesh, and examines whether children's survival chances are poorer among the urban poor and rural-urban migrants, using data from the 1999-2000 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey. The results demonstrate that rural/urban residence has significant effect on childhood mortality. Two distinct child morality regimes in urban Bangladesh, one for natives and one for migrants has been identified. The migrant-native mortality differentials fairly correspond with the differences in socio-economic status. Within the urban areas, the child survival status is even worse among the migrant poor than the average urban poor. This poorest-richest differential in childhood mortality is higher in urban areas than that in rural areas. The underlying efforts to improve child health in urban Bangladesh, is that of urban poor, particularly the urban migrants, who are growing more rapidly than the rural poor due to heavy rural-urban migration.