The Young Lives study tracks the experiences of 12,000 children across Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam over a decade, exploring their aspirations, educational access, and social conditions amidst rapid economic growth and infrastructural improvements. Key findings highlight high aspirations for education among youth, with a significant impact of socioeconomic status and gender on educational attainment and work responsibilities. Despite some progress, the research underscores persistent inequalities that impact the most vulnerable children, emphasizing the need for comprehensive approaches to address these disparities.

1. Great Expectations or Failed
Aspirations?
Findings from 10 years
of Young Lives
Virginia Morrow
Senior Research Officer, Deputy Director, Young Lives
Freie Universität, Berlin, 3 December 2014

2. YOUNG LIVES LONGITUDINAL DESIGN
YOUNG LIVES STUDY
• 12,000 children in Ethiopia, India (former Andhra Pradesh), Peru, Vietnam
• Two age cohorts in each country:
- 2,000 children born in 2000-01
- 1,000 children born in 1994-95
• Pro-poor sample: 20 sites in each country selected to reflect country
diversity, rural-urban, livelihoods, ethnicity, gender
• 4 major household survey rounds: in 2002; 2006/7; 2009; 2013. Final round
2016
• Qualitative research
• School study and other studies
• Comprehensive focus – nutrition, development, cognitive and psycho-social,
education, social protection
• Partnership of government and independent research institutes
• Commissioned by UK Dept for International Development
• Tracking progress of the Millennium Development Goals
• Informing post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals agenda

3. VISUALISING THIS
Same age children at
different time points
Qualitative nested sample
1 2 3 4
AGES: 1 5 8 12 15
YOUNGER COHORT
Following 2,000 children
OLDER COHORT
Following 1,000 children
AGES: 8 12 15 19 22
Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 Round 4 Round 5
2002 2006 2009 2013 2016
Linked
school surveys

4. QualitativQeU reAsLeIaTArcThIVE RESEARCH
• Focus on the daily lives and well-being of
children and young people in a selection
of YL communities – rapid social change
and modernity/globalisation
• Capture important changes during
childhood and children’s trajectories - a
life-course approach
• Understand how policies and services
are experienced by children (and
caregivers) - inequalities - and who is
‘left behind’

5. QualitativQeU reAsLeIaTArcThIVE RESEARCH
200+ case study children & young people
 sub-sample of 50 young people in
each country (equal numbers of boys
and girls and younger and older
cohort)
 including focus children, their
carers, teachers, community
representatives
 four communities (AP and
Telangana, Peru and Vietnam) and five
communities (Ethiopia)
combination of methods, including
interviews, group discussions,
creative/visual methods

6. TEN YEARS IN CHILDREN’S LIVES
• Economies of all four countries grew rapidly in the first decade of the 21st
century
• Growth was accompanied by infrastructural improvements and increased
service access (associated with the MDGs) e.g.
- primary school enrolment = near universal across the sample in 3 of our
countries and rapidly increasing in Ethiopia
- in Peru access to safe water increased by 50% between 2002 and 2009
- internet access is now widespread in Vietnam
- increased external investment, road & communications infrastructure in Ethiopia
Social protection:
– MGNREGA, India; Juntos, Peru; PSNP, Ethiopia
– Health insurance in Vietnam, Peru and in India; Health Extension Workers in
Ethiopia

7. ASPIRATIONS ARE HIGH
• In 2006 between 75 and 90% of 12 year olds aspired to vocational
training or university – this mostly persists at 19 years
• They want better jobs than their parents
- We’re not going to suffer like this in the mud ...it’s better that I go
and study. (Marta, 15 years, Peru)
- If one can learn and study hard, they will always have a good job at
the end that can change their family’s life. (Fatuma, 15 years,
Ethiopia)
- We see our parents working, they work in the fields, and work hard
daily… and we feel that we should not be like that…. (Harika, 16 years
old, rural Telangana)
• They said the best age for marriage and childbearing is mid-20s
(varies by country and gender)

8. WHAT HAPPENS?

9. WHAT WERE THEY DOING AT AGE 19?
• Ethiopia – 59%; AP India 49%; Peru 45%; Vietnam 48% - are
still studying, often combined with paid work
• The least poor, those whose parents had higher levels of
education, and those in urban areas stay longer in school
• Gender differences: Young men are more likely to be
studying in AP, India; young women in Ethiopia and
Vietnam
Young women - married Given birth
• 37% – AP India 24% - Peru
• 25% - Peru 21% - AP India
• 19% - Vietnam 12% - Vietnam
• 13% - Ethiopia 9% - Ethiopia

10. WHOSE VALUES? QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
• Emphasis on school enrolment in MDGS
• ‘Successful and unsuccessful transitions’
• ‘Left behind’ in development – individualised
• Burden of expectation placed on children
• How is this experienced by children, and how
do they manage demands on their time?
• How do they value different dimensions of
their lives?

11. HARIKA IN POOMPUHAR, IN RURAL TELANGANA
• 2007 - Her father had injured his leg and could not work
• Harika was involved in cotton pollination work and going to
school
• Found it difficult to manage both: “if I go to the fields I won’t get
an education”
• Wanted to become a teacher
• In 2008, had received a scholarship of Rs 6,000/- per year,
payable conditional on completing school
• Was responsible for some aspects of farm work
• In 2010 – at College, aspiring to be a doctor: “You will have a
better life if you study… you will get better jobs… you will get an
educated husband.”

12. RANADEEP
• In 2007 was missing school to work, but was optimistic
• 2008 - wanting to migrate, open a shop. Wanted to
continue his schooling, but complained about working
• 2010 had failed Grade 10: “I will be a waste”
• Can’t ask his family for support: “I know they are
struggling”; crop failure because of drought;
indebtedness
• Wants to support his mother/family
• 2013 – had returned to college

13. SANTHI, IN PATNA, REMOTE TRIBAL AP
• Father a teacher; the family moved to a town to
access better quality schooling
• 2007 and 2008, Santhi wanted to be a doctor
• Was doing well at school, but during Grade 10, fell
behind due to ill health
• 2010, was in Intermediate College, studying Maths
• Indebted to her parents, and feels pressure: “I am
frightened whether I will reach the expectations for
the support they gave me. … the only way to repay
their support is to study well and score good marks
and achieve a good position in society about which
my parents feel proud and be happy without any
worries”
• Refused to discuss the possibility of marriage

14. YASWANTH
• Father died when he was in Grade 1 aged about 6:
“Mother struggled, worked hard and took care of me and
my sister”
• In 2007, helping his mother at home, fetching water,
firewood, buying provisions
• Mother had high hopes for him for a ‘small job’ so he can
take care of her in the future
• 2010 – struggling at school, fearful he would not complete
Grade 10: “I feel I want to study, but I can’t… the lessons
are hard to understand”
• Debts worry him and his mother
• Will look for “anything that will earn me and my mother
enough to lead a happy life… we must have the capacity
to earn”

15. DISCUSSION
• Sense of obligation to parents – family values, especially
boys who want to care for parents/mothers
• Whether through achievement in school, or work
• Patriarchal conventions means that girls will leave
family of origin
• But affect boys too – wanting to marry a girl ‘less
educated’ than themselves
• Circumstances constrain children’s capacity to study but
they risk blaming themselves or being blamed for
‘failure’
• Becoming a farmer is not valued as an aspiration
• All sit uneasily with dominant approaches to youth and
adolescence in international policy discourses

16. UN CRC @ 25: ‘AN UNFINISHED AGENDA’
• Progress achieved though holistic approach to child
development: child survival and enrolment in school
• BUT widespread inequities affecting the poorest and most
vulnerable children = a global issue
• ‘Need to reduce implementation gap between principles and
rights enshrined in UN CRC and actual living conditions of the
most marginalised and excluded girls and boys’
• ‘Many children find themselves living with multiple risks and
multiple hazards … action must be on the basis of mappings of
vulnerability that reflects these complexities’

17. REFERENCES
REFERENCES
Jo Boyden (2013) ‘“We’re not going to suffer like this in the mud”: Educational Aspirations,
Social Mobility and Independent Child Migration among Populations Living in Poverty’,
Compare 43.4: 580-600.
Jo Boyden and Michael Bourdillon (eds) (2012) Childhood Poverty, Multidisciplinary
Approaches. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Jo Boyden and Michael Bourdillon (eds) (2014) Growing Up in Poverty: Findings from Young
Lives, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Gina Crivello (2011) ‘Becoming Somebody: Youth Transitions through Education and Migration
in Peru’, Journal of Youth Studies 14.4: 395-411.
Gina Crivello, Virginia Morrow and Emma Wilson (2013) Young Lives Longitudinal Qualitative
Research: A Guide for Researchers, Technical Note 26, Oxford: Young Lives.
Paul Dornan and Kirrily Pells (2014) From Infancy to Adolescence: Growing Up in Poverty:
Preliminary findings from Round 4 of Young Lives, Oxford: Young Lives.
Virginia Morrow (2013) ‘Whose Values? Young People’s Aspirations and Experiences of
Schooling in Andhra Pradesh, India’, Children & Society 27.4: 258-269.
UN Secretary-General (2014) Status of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, New York:
United Nations.

18. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS & THANK YOU
THANKS TO…
Young Lives children, parents/caregivers as well as
community leaders, teachers, health workers and
others in communities
Fieldworkers, data-managers, survey enumerators
and supervisors, principal investigators and country
directors in each country
Oxford team
Funders: DFID, DGIS, IrishAid, Oak Foundation,
Bernard Van Leer Foundation.

19. FINDING OUT MORE…
FINDING OUT MORE
www.younglives.org.uk
• methods and research papers
• datasets (UK Data Archive)
• publications
• child profiles and photos
• e-newsletter