generate variable: birth order of children (ages 0 to 17) in household

[Sophie Gebers]

Hello

I am using the South African NIDS (National Income Dynamic Survey) wave 1 to wave 5. I have successfully merged the waves to create a panel dataset.
I am trying to create a variable that identifies the order of birth between siblings within the household.
I have successfully created a variable that sums the total number of children in the household, but my stata knowledge is insufficient in creating a variable for ranking the children according to age. I do understand that it would require the 'egen: rank' command.
The desired result is a variable that could label the eldest, youngest etc.

I only have a variables for hhid, pid, date of birth, relation to the household head.

Could anyone help in creating such a variable?

Thank you
Sophie Gebers

[Andrew Musau]

No data example, but something along the following lines would work

bys household_id (birth_year): gen order=_n if relation=="child"