Child Mortality (under 5) in Senegal: 1800 to Today (and Tomorrow)

Behind every statistic on MYRIAD is the measure of human lives actually lived. For Senegal, the metric we track is child mortality under five: of every 1,000 children born, how many died before their fifth birthday. These numbers are not abstract points on a graph. They represent the quiet arithmetic of families, the fragile beginnings of generations, and the profound weight of survival across three centuries. Every decade tells a precise story of how human societies confront the raw probabilities of existence, recording the silent losses and enduring resilience of everyday people.

The historical arc in Senegal reveals a long, grinding plateau slowly yielding to profound change. In the 1800s estimate, the toll was grimly consistent, recorded at 450 per 1,000 births, ticking down slowly through the decades to reach 430 per 1,000 births in the 1900s estimate. From there, the descent accelerates through the 1950s at 320, the 1980s at 180, and down to the 2020s, where child mortality stands at 75 per 1,000 births, ranking #147 of 157 countries. Looking forward, models trace a hopeful trajectory down to a 2100s projection of 12.58.

If you were born in Senegal across these changing eras, your encounter with the world was defined by the epochal odds of your decade. A child entering the 1800s estimate faced a fundamentally different horizon than one arriving during the 2020s, where the landscape of survival has shifted dramatically. As these projections stretch toward the 2030s projection of 60 and the 2050s projection of 38.4, the sheer probability of growing up continues to transform. Where do YOU rank among everyone ever born? →