This document summarizes findings from the Young Lives study on adolescent development in low and middle-income countries. Key points: 1) Poverty has cascading effects throughout adolescence, negatively impacting education, nutrition, skills development, and future opportunities. Gender and social norms exacerbate inequalities. 2) Adolescents face increasing responsibilities from work, family care, and norms around discipline while their aspirations often exceed opportunities, especially for the poor. 3) Transitions from education to work, marriage, and parenthood interact in gendered ways with poverty and norms. Early responsibilities disrupt education, perpetuating disadvantage.

1. Adolescence: Aspiration, responsibility and life trajectories
Findings from Young Lives
Marta Favara and Frances Winter
University of Oxford
OPM, 11th May, 2017

2. Overview of Young Lives design
• Multi-disciplinary longitudinal cohort
study that aims to:
 Enhance understanding of childhood
poverty & inequalities in LMICs
 Provide evidence to improve policies &
practice
• Following nearly 12,000 children:
 In Ethiopia, India (Andhra Pradesh &
Telangana), Peru & Vietnam
 Over 15-years
• Two age cohorts in each country:
 2,000 children born in 2000-01
 1,000 children born in 1994-95
• Collaboration:
 Partners in each study country & in the
UK, US
 Core-funded by DFID
 Monitoring MDGs

3. Young Lives

4. Sampling:
• One country from each major region of the Global South. Countries > diverse socio-
economic & political conditions
• Sentinel site sampling; four stages (region, district/provinces, sentinel sites, random
sampling of children of right age within sites)
• Purposively over-sampled poor areas (40% urban / 60% rural) using different poverty
indicators in each country
• Peru: 3 teams took 280 days to visit 36,153 households – to get a sample of 2,000 younger
cohort & 750 older cohort children.
Ethiopia India Peru Vietnam
Young Lives sampling design

5. HH & community surveys:
• Cross-country & cross-site comparison
• Inter-cohort comparison
• Inter-generational comparison
• Intra-household dynamics (siblings data)
HH & community survey data:
• Explanatory variables at the community, HH, caregiver & child levels: Demographic &
socio-economic characteristics; services; education; time-use; marriage/cohabitation &
fertility history etc.
• Child outcome indicators: Nutrition (anthropometrics); health (self-report); cognitive
skills (verbal cognition, literacy & numeracy); subjective & psychosocial wellbeing (self-
esteem, agency, generalized trust/social inclusion); aspirations & expectations (education
& employment); employment history; risk behaviours (Peru)
Key features and data collected

6. Individual -&
Household- level
assets
Context
Physical assets
Internal constraints
Own values
Formal Institution
Informal Institution
Risks/Geography
Inputs
Processes/decision
making
Outcomes
Opportunities
Economic participation
Marriage and Parenthood
Education and skills development
11-12 14-15 18-19 21-220-1 4-5 7-8
LifeCoursetrajectories
An analytic model for investigating life course trajectories
Health & nutrition

7. Poverty & Inequality: Long-term outcomes of childhood poverty; the interaction, evolution
& outcomes of horizontal & vertical inequalities; The impact of transfers & social protection
Nutrition & Health: Determinants & long-term outcomes of early childhood malnutrition &
maternal malnutrition; the incidence, extent & determinants of growth recovery & failure in
adolescence; Predictors of risk behaviours (Peru)
Skills formation & Transition to the labour market: Labor market entry at ages 15 & 22;
early determinants of labor market access; skills formation (including 21st century /digital
skills) up to ages 15 & 22; types of skills facilitating the transition to the labor market; the
relationship between school-to-work transitions & cohabitation/marriage & parenthood
Pathways to and from marriage & parenthood:Early predictors of teen
marriage/cohabitation & parenthood; the role of gender norms, expectations & aspirations;
Social & economic consequences of teen marriage/cohabitation & parenthood; Factors
affecting teen decision-making
Research strands

8. Adolescence as a ‘critical window’ (?): the triple dividend
-An important time of life in its own
right.
-10-17 year-olds are children entitled
to special protection under the UN
Convention n on the Rights of the
Child.
A time of:
-Physical & neurological change
-Investment in human capital (?)
-Multiple social & economic transitions
…with lasting consequences for adult
well-being, health, and labour market
outcomes, the next generation

9. High (unmet?) aspirations

10. High hopes for the future, riding on education
Children’s educational aspiration at age 12

11. Aspirations track experience and opportunities
• On average, boys have higher aspirations than
girls at the age of 12 and 15.
• Boys and girls adapt and change their
aspirations over time
Source: Favara, 2016
.65
.7
.75
.8
2 2.5 3 3.5 4
round
All Female
Male
.6
.65
.7
.75
.8
.85
Percentageofchildrenaspiringtouniversity
Bottom Middle Top
Wealth index
Female Male
• Aspirations are positively correlated with
wealth
• The gender gap in terms of aspirations is the
highest among the poorest households

12. But aspirations not met, especially for the poorest
Near universal enrolment at age 12. But amongst the poorest tercile of Young
Lives’ cohort – a substantial percentage did not make it to secondary
education
• 45% in Ethiopia (grade 9)
• 25 % in India (grade 9)
• 8% in Peru (grade 7)
• 12% in Vietnam (grade 6)

13. Impact of poverty starts early & cascades through adolescence

14. By age 5, impact of disadvantage clearly apparent and predicts later
achievement
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
First tertile Second tercile Third tercile
PPVT score at age 5
Peru
Mathematics at age 8 Mathematics at age 12 Reading at age 12

15. ..and it starts even before
Source: Benny et al, 2017
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
1 y 5 y 8 y 12 y
Probability of a child being stunted
(adjusting for background factors, %)
Non-stunted adolescent
mother
Non-stunted adult mother
Stunted adolescent mother
Stunted adult mother
• The probability to be stunted increases if being born to stunted mothers
• Being born to a stunted adolescent mother was associated with a 15 percentage
point increased chance of child being stunted in infancy, compared with being born
to a non-stunted older mother.

16. ..with long-term repercussions
Source: Dornan et al., 2016
• Children born to stunted mothers are at increased risk for adverse cognitive
outcomes

17. Divergence in learning progress (8-12 years old) reflects wealth groups
Source: Rolleston et al. 2016
0.2.4.6
01234
-2 0 2 4 -2 0 2 4
Ethiopia Vietnam
Most Poor Least Poor
Math scores (2009)
Graphs by country
Maths scores
Learning divergence by wealth groups

18. Learning at 8, and work at 12 predict secondary school completion in
India
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
Girls (compared with boys)
Father: secondary ed and above (compared to none)
High sense of self-efficacy, age 12
Able to read words and sentences, age 8
Able to write without errors, age 8
More than 3 hours on domestic chores, age 12
Had done paid work in the last 12 months, age 12
Impact on chances of completing secondary school
Less likely More likely
Source: Singh & Mukherjee (2016)

19. Early childhood education (can) set a child on the right track
***
***
***
0
102030
Age5 Age8 Age12
Ethiopia
* **
0
102030
Age5 Age8 Age12
India
***
***
***
0
102030
Age5 Age8 Age12
Viet Nam
**
***
***
0
102030
Age5 Age8 Age12
Peru
Gap in numeracy skills at age 5, 8 and 12 comparing children who attended pre-school vs.
those who did not
Source: Favara et al., 2016

20. Adolescence is a time of overlapping transitions & responsibilities

21. Increasing responsibilities
Source: Espinoza and Crivello (forthcoming)

22. Transitions out of education and into marriage and parenthood
Source: Briones , 2017

23. And earlier for children from poorer households
Source: Briones , 2017

24. And gender and location matter too
Source: Briones , 2017

25. With multiple push and pull factors (Ethiopia)
Source: Briones, 2017

26. and plenty of ‘backwards and forwards’
Source: Briones, 2017

27. Gender matters, but a focus on adolescent girls doesn’t tell the whole story

28. Gender intersects with poverty and other differences
Who is not enrolled in school aged 15?
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
Ethiopia India Peru Vietnam Ethiopia India Peru Vietnam
Girls Boys
% from middle and bottom wealth tercile not enrolled % from top wealth tercile not enrolled

29. Gender gaps in learning attainment mostly emerge in adolescence and
persist to early adulthood
Source: Singh and Krutikova, 2016
Gender gap in quantitative skills

30. Gender norms aren’t just ‘culture’: poverty context matters
Early marriage and adolescent childbearing in India
1. Girls who stay in school for longer marry
later. Gender gaps in enrolment widen during
adolescence as social norms that disadvantage
girls become more salient and interact with
structural factors.
2. Poverty is a risk factor. Where resources are
limited, gendered social risks become more
acute and parents are forced to make decisions
which disadvantage girls.
3. Aspirations matter but reflect wider realities.
Girls and caregivers’ aspirations fall during
adolescence as girls’ lack of opportunities and
vulnerability to gendered risks become more
pronounced.
4. Social norms that encourage early child bearing
are compounded by inequitable access to health
and education services, causing some married
girls to give birth earlier than others.
(Roest 2016; Singh and Vennam 2016)
If I die, who will take care of
the girl? People are always
ready to slander a girl if she is
alone
Mother of Ameena, Hyderabad

31. Gender norms – and context- shape boys’ experiences too
Between Hope and a Hard Place: Boys and Young Men in
Ethiopia
1. Aspirations: By age 19, a growing ambivalence
regarding education.
2. Rural/urban contrasts: the least optimistic young men
were located in urban areas where they felt
disconnected from development opportunities.
3. Livelihoods: Many of the young men had left school and
were trying to find work, both as a response to poverty
and a vital source of respect in the community. But
because they found so few opportunities for gainful
employment, some of them were left feeling stuck and
hopeless.
4. Marriage: for young men, marriage was impossible
until they had adequately paid work.
(Crivello & van der Gaag, 2016)
Yilugnta is to do things
for the sake of others
but you do not believe
in it.
Miki, Ethiopia

32. Gender norms sit alongside expectations around work, family and discipline
1. Education is becoming a ‘new
obligation’ and a route to social
mobility
2. Strong responsibility towards
family & lifting them out of
poverty
3. Work is valued and seen as
preparation for adulthood
4. Harsh discipline is an accepted
and expected way to teach
children a lesson and change
behaviour.
If we send them to school, at least they may live
happily, and they need not lead a donkey’s life as
we had lived.
Latha’s mother, rural Andhra Pradesh
If we are punished, it is because we deserve it,
because we have done something wrong.
Jose, Peru
I feel I have to take care of [my mother] well.... I
will see to it that she never faces any problems.
Subbiah , rural AP
I like the
work and I will be competent after finishing my
studies as it enables me to put theory into practice.
Mersha, Ethiopia, woodwork

33. Norms around gender and care interact with economic circumstances
• Haymanot, in Ethiopia, had enjoyed school and been a good student until
her mother became gravely ill.
• Age 12 she left school and found work at a stone crushing plant since
drought and food security affected her family.
• Aged 15, she married a man from the plant at her mother’s insistence. Her
mother’s health was deteriorating and she wanted to secure Haymanot’s
future. She worried because they were poor and couldn’t afford a
dowry: ‘no one looks to the poor for marriage.’ ‘My dream as a mother …
is to marry her to somebody.’
• Age 17, Haymanot divorced and had a baby, returning home to her
mother. She later remarried explaining, ‘because I didn’t have any other
options,’ but she was happier and stayed living close to her mother so that
she could continue to look after her, along with her two children.
(Tafere & Chuta, 2016; Espinoza Revollo & Crivello, forthcoming)

34. And norms are not static
Norms change …
I don’t want to marry, I want to
be like my aunt … She is 27
and she is single. My aunt
enjoys herself. I want to be
like that… she is a professional.
Luz, Peru
And are contested …
It was done at her request. After
she witnessed a girl insulting
another who was not circumcised,
my daughter came home and
asked me to organize her
circumcision. She told me she
does not want to be insulted in
the same way … We did the
circumcision in the evening for
the fear of the local officials who
could punish us… Despite being
prohibited by the local officials,
everybody circumcises their
daughter.
Mother, Ethiopia

35. Discussion
1. Social protection to mitigate the impact of poverty and shocks on
adolescent trajectories and outcomes
2. Gender inequalities open up during adolescence but need tackling in
conjunction with poverty and other disadvantage
3. Meeting disadvantaged boys’ needs, as well as girls
4. Recognising the role of families and the economic and social risks that
they and adolescents face
5. Recognising adolescents’ multiple responsibilities, reducing burdens, and
focusing on quality, responsive services which offer ‘second chances’
6. Finding entry-points to prevent and reduce violence
7. Adolescence as a window of opportunity?

36. Looking ahead

37. What is new in R5
1. Digital skills
2. New psychosocial scales
i. Big-Five Inventory (Conscientiousness, Neuroticism)
ii. GRIT
3. Other job-related skills
i. Team work and Leadership
ii. Driving skills and languages
4. Expectations
i. Job and education aspirations
ii. Subjective expectations on the return to schooling
5. Marriage and parenthood expectations
6. Social norms around gender roles

38. The future of Young Lives

39. FINDING OUT MORE : www.younglives.org.uk
THANK YOU!

40. References
Benny, Lisa, Paul Dornan Andreas Georgiadis (2017) Maternal Undernutrition and Childbearing in Adolescence
and Offspring Growth and Development in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Is Adolescence a Critical
Window for Interventions Against Stunting?
Crivello, Gina and Nikki van der Gaag (2016) Between Hope and a Hard Place: Boys and Young Men Negotiating
Gender, Poverty and Social Worth in Ethiopia, Working Paper 160, Oxford: Young Lives.
Favara M., Woodhead M., Castro J.F., Chang G. and Espinoza P. (2017), Pre-school Education and Skills
Development in Peru, Vietnam, Ethiopia and India: Evidence from Young Lives, forthcoming World Bank.
Favara, Marta (2016) Aspirations and Educational Attainments of Ethiopian Boys and Girls, Working Paper 145,
Oxford: Young Lives
Roest, Jennifer (2016) Child Marriage and Early Child-bearing in India: Risk Factors and Policy Implications:
Working Paper 159, Oxford: Young Lives.
Rolleston, Caine (2016) Escaping a Low-Level Equilibrium of Educational Quality, RISE Working Paper 16/008,
Oxford: Research on Improving Systems of Education programme
Singh, Abhijeet and Patricia Espinoza (2016) Teenage Marriage, Fertility, and Well-being: Panel Evidence from
India, Working Paper 151, Oxford: Young Lives.
Singh, Abhijeet and Sofya Krutikova (2016, forthcoming) ‘Starting Together, Growing Apart: Gender Gaps in
Learning from Preschool to Adulthood in Four Developing Countries’, Working Paper, Oxford: Young Lives.
Singh, Renu and Protap Mukherjee (2016) Factors Affecting Successful Completion of Secondary Education in
India, India Policy Brief 5, New Delhi: Young Lives.
Tafere, Yisak and Nardos Chuta (2016) Gendered Trajectories of Young People through School, Work and
Marriage in Ethiopia, Working Paper 155, Oxford: Young Lives

41. ANNEX

42. Sampling design

43. Ethiopia
Sampling design (1)
Four stages sampling process:
1. Regions (Amhara, Oromia, SNNPR, Tigray
and Addis Ababa, accounting for 96% of
national population)
2. Woredas (districts) (3-5 districts in each
regions, 20 in total)
3. Kebele (at least 1 for each woredas)
4. 100 young children (born in 2001-02)
and 50 older children (born in 1994-5)
were selected within those sites.
Criteria to select districts:
1. Districts with food deficit profile
2. Districts which capture diversity across
regions and ethnicities in both urban and
rural areas
3. Manageable costs in term of tracking for
the future rounds
Comparing with DHS and WMS 2000: 2000:
Poor hh are over-sampled, but YL covers the
diversity of children in the country including
up to 75% percentile of the Ethiopian
population.

44. India
Sampling design (2)
Four stages sampling process:
1. Regions (Coastal Andhra, Rayalaseema,
and Telangana)
2. Districts
3. 20 sentinel sites (mandal)
4. 100 young children (born in 2001-02)
and 50 older children (born in 1994-5)
were randomly selected within those
sites.
Criteria followed:
1. Uniform distribution across regions
2. One poor and one non-poor district in
each region (based on economic,
human development and infrastructure
indicators)
Comparison to the DHS 1998/9:
YLs hh seem to be slightly wealthier than
the average household in Andhra Pradesh.
Despite these biases YL sample covers the
diversity of children in poor households in
Andhra Pradesh

45. Peru
Sampling design (3)
Sampling process:
1. Sample frame at district level excluding
the top 5% richest district based on
poverty map 2001
2. Districts divided in population groups
ordered by poverty index and randomly
selected to cover rural, urban, peri-
urban coastal, mountain and amazon
areas (random selection proportional to
district population)
3. Within the selected districts a village
was randomly chosen
4. Within each village the street blocks
were counted and randomly numbered
to select the starting point.
Comparison to the DHS 2000:
YL cover the diversity of children and hh in
Peru

46. Vietnam
Sampling design (4)
Four stages sampling process:
1. Regions (5/8 regions, North-East region, Red River
Delta, City, South Central Coast, Mekong Delta.
2. Provinces (5 in total ,1 per region, Lao Cai, Hung
Yen, Da Nang Phu Yen, Ben Tre).
3. Sentinel sites (4 commune per province, 2 poor, 1
average and 1 above-average commune )
4. 100 young children (born in 2001-02) and 50 older
children (born in 1994-5) were selected within
those sites.
Criteria followed (to rank communes):
1. Development of infrastructure,
2. Percentage of poor households in the commune
3. Child malnutrition status.
Comparison to the DHS and VHLSS 2002:
The urban sector is under-represented (in terms of
population and the level of development). YL includes
hh with on average less access to basic services and
slightly poorer than the average in Viet Nam. YL
sample covers the diversity of children in the country.

47. Information collected

48. • Some of the information collected in Young lives:
– Health information and anthropometrics (+ parents, siblings and child of YL
child’s anthropometrics)
– Education history and cognitive skills trajectories
– Psycho-social wellbeing and soft skills trajectories
– Employment status/history
– Job and Educational Aspiration and subjective expectations about earnings
– Expectations about marriage and parenthood
– Fertility history
– Marriage/cohabitation history
– Control over assets (decision making power)
– Social norms indicators
– Knowledge on SRH and sexual behaviour
– Risky behaviours and Criminal activities (Peru)
Information collected

49. Cognitive skills
Cohort Round 1 (2002) Round 2 (2007) Round 3 (2010) Round 4 (2013) Round 5 (2016)
OC 8 years old 12 years old 15 years old 19 years old 22 years old
Raven's test PPVT PPVT PPVT -
Math* Math Math Math
Reading* Reading* Cloze test
Reading
comprehension
Writing* Writing*
YC 1 year old 5 years old 8 years old 12 years old 15 years old
PPVT PPVT PPVT PPVT
CDA quantitative Math Math Math
Writing*
Reading* Reading*
EGRA
Reading
comprehension
Note: *One Item; CDA=Cognitive Development Assessment ; PPVT=Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test; EGRA=Early
Grade Reading Assessment; Cloze test=Cloze test on reading comprehension

50. Soft skills
Cohort Round 1 (2002) Round 2 (2007) Round 3 (2010) Round 4 (2013) Round 5 (2016)
OC 8 years old 12 years old 15 years old 19 years old 22 years old
Agency Agency Agency Agency
Pride Pride Pride Pride
Trust Trust
Inclusion Inclusion
Subjective
wellbeing
Subjective
wellbeing
Subjective
wellbeing
Subjective
wellbeing
Self-esteem Self-esteem
Self-efficacy Self-efficacy
Parent relations Parent relations
Peer relations
Grit
Neuroticism,
Conscientiousness
Job skills
YC 1 year old 5 years old 8 years old 12 years old 15 years old
Agency Agency Agency
Pride Pride Pride
Subjective
wellbeing
Subjective
wellbeing
Subjective
wellbeing
Parent relations Parent relations
Peer relations Peer relations

51. Aspirations and expectations
Cohort Round 1 (2002) Round 2 (2007) Round 3 (2010) Round 4 (2013) Round 5 (2016)
OC 8 years old 12 years old 15 years old 19 years old 22 years old
Aspirations
about Marriage
and Fertility
Aspirations about
Marriage and
Fertility
Educational
aspirations/
expectations
Educational
aspirations/
expectations
Job Aspirations/
Expectations
Job Aspirations/
Expectations
Job Aspirations/
Expectations
YC 1 year old 5 years old 8 years old 12 years old 15 years old
Aspirations about
Marriage and
Fertility
Educational
aspirations/
expectations
Educational
aspirations/
expectations
Job Aspirations
Job Aspirations/
Expectations
Job Aspirations/
Expectations
Subjective earnings
expectations

52. Methodological challenges

53. Challenges :
– Some attrition is inevitable
– Cohort is relatively small for a longitudinal study
– Study period is relatively long (three years gap between waves)
Risk mitigating strategies:
– Collecting detailed contact information
– Importance of tracking
₋ Reduces time looking for children when we start the fieldwork
₋ Maintains continuity of social contact and trust between researchers and
families
– Reduce refusal rates as much as possible:
₋ Importance of explaining what we’re doing
₋ Importance of maintaining field teams
₋ Give photos back to families (part of ethics/reciprocity)
₋ Ensure no respondents are over-loaded (by different elements/sub-studies)
₋ Compensations (Losing a day of work has big impact on income)
Challenges: 1. Cohort maintenance & attrition

54. …and we have been quite successful!
YC OC Overall
Ethiopia 2.2% 8.4% 4.3%
India 2.6% 4.3% 3.2%
Peru 6.3% 10.3% 7.3%
Vietnam 2.9% 9.9% 5.3%
Total 3.6% 8.1% 5.0%
ETHIOPIA INDIA
PERU VIETNAM

55. Challenges:
– The questions need to change as the children grow up
– Change in primary respondent/hh head
– Keep as many questions as possible the same across rounds (panel variables)
– Asking the same questions of the YC as we did the OC in earlier rounds (core base
variables)
– Ensure comparability over time (e.g. cognitive tests-- Item Response Theory)
– Keep the order of the survey modules the same over the time
Limitations for comparability:
- Switch from PAPI to CAPI;
- Some changes in the structure of the questionnaire are inevitable
- `Getting stuck’ with the errors of the past to the seek of maintain comparability across
rounds
Challenges: 2. Getting comparable measures over time

56. Benefits:
– How patterns of relationships are similar/different across countries.
– Understanding why and how specific policies or programmes are effective in one
country.
– Comparative analysis can give greater confidence that evidence found in one country is
applicable to others.
– Learning in relation to methods: trying to develop measures that can be used across
cultures.
Challenges:
– Constructing a questionnaire that suits different national contexts.
– Ethical committee approval and country specific sensitivities.
– Deal with different fieldwork processes.
Risk mitigating strategies :
– Define research priorities and relevant survey questions in each country
– There are also some country variations
– Translation and back translation is key to ensure consistency
– Continuity of country team leaders and fieldworker coordinators.
Challenges: 3. Across countries coordination and comparability

57. Challenges:
– Maintaining increasingly complex survey instruments
– Maintaining strong coordination and liaison between Quant/Qual/ School survey teams
– Participant recall
– Panel conditioning
Risk mitigating strategies:
– Piloting and training are crucial!
₋ Ensure research questions work in the field and are consistent with local situations and children’s ages
₋ Ensure questionnaire are not too long / burdensome
₋ Train teams and learn from practical experience of field work to improve instrument design
₋ Produce accurate instrument manuals and protocols
₋ Uncover ethics issues and give safe space for discussion
₋ Initiate, build and maintain positive team dynamics
₋ Ensure that good data collection systems are in place
– Consistency checks are embedded in CAPI, some information are prefilled, ultimately
some inconsistencies can be solved ex-post
Challenges: 4. Quality of the data

58. • CAPI introduced in R4 – is a different way of doing surveys (e.g. changes dynamic of
interview)
Benefits:
– Eliminate data entry error.
– Know how work is progressing
– Avoid mistakes before they happen
– Ask the right questions (embedded skip pattern)
– Quality improvement (?)
– Reduction in the length of the interview (?)
Challenges:
– Requires more time at the front end (building the programme)
– Fieldworkers to get familiar with a new instruments
– Put in place a data management and transfer systems
– Devolve responsibilities to the in-country data managers (in Peru and Vietnam)
Risk mitigating strategies:
– Extra effort at the front end in programming
– Piloting and testing the application is crucial!
– Training country data managers and fieldworkers on data management and transfer
systems.
Challenges: 5. Introducing CAPI

59. Research questions

60. Poverty & Inequality:
• Exploring the links between childhood poverty, the strategies people use to earn their living
and the assets available to them, and the implications for children’s long-term life chances.
• How do inequalities interact in the ways they impact on children’s development potential?
• How do inequalities, including gender inequalities, evolve during early, middle and later
childhood?
• The impact of transfers and social protection.
Nutrition & Health:
• What are the long-run effects of early childhood malnutrition? What are the impacts on
the development of cognitive skills and psycho-social competencies?
• What is the incidence, extent, determinants of growth recovery and failure in adolescence?
• What is the nature and determinants of maternal malnutrition during the life-cycle and the
implications for maternal and child outcomes?
Main areas for ‘policy relevant’ research (1a)

61. Education: School Effectiveness and 21st century skills
• What are the characteristics of effective schools? Which education in some contexts (or
conditions) is more or less effective in delivering ‘21st century skills’ demanded by
employers, such as ‘critical thinking’ and ‘functional English’?
Education: Learning Trajectories and Skills Formation over the Life-cycle
• At what stages do learning gaps emerge, widen or narrow? What is the role of school
quality in shaping children’s learning, cognitive skills, non-cognitive and technical skills
over time? At which stages of the educational life-course is schooling more or less
‘critical’? At what ages are they more malleable (stable trajectories, diverging paths or
options to catch up later in life)?
Main areas of policy relevant research (2a)

62. Transition to the Labour Market
• What happens to young women and men when they leave education and enter the
labor market at the age of 15 and 22? How many of them are employed (and self-
employed), unemployed, inactive and under-unemployed?
• How their background and experiences as children shapes their access to the labor
market?
• What skills facilitate the transition to the labor market and to “quality” jobs? To what
extent education and training are effectively equipping youth with the “right” skills for
the labor market.
• To what extent young people realized their childhood aspirations? What role do
expectations play?
• How is the school-to-work transition of young people related to other parallel key early
life transitions, including cohabitation, marriage and childbearing? How young people
conciliate paid activities with other responsibilities?
Main areas of policy relevant research (3a)

63. Longitudinal qualitative data

64. Longitudinal qualitative data
• 4 rounds of qualitative data with a nested sample of 200+ case study
boys and girls (of both cohorts) across the 4 study countries.
• Seven-year period of data collection with the same group of children
and families (2007-2014). Spans ages 6 – 13 (younger cohort) and 12 –
19 (older cohort).
• Focuses on everyday experiences of poverty and risk, framed by an
interest in: a) understandings and experiences of wellbeing; b)
transitions and trajectories; c) experiences of services and
programmes.
• Methods combine individual and group-based discussions, creative
activities (mapping, drawing, photo elicitation, etc.), participant-
observation and semi-structures interviews with children, caregivers,
teachers and community representatives.
• Longitudinal data on children’s time-use, school and work experiences,
aspirations, identities and peer, family and generational relationships;
social norms and expectations.

65. School survey

66. Young Lives School Survey, 2010 – 2017
Ethiopia India Vietnam Peru
2010 Round 1 (primary)
Round 1 (primary)
2011 Round 1 (primary)
School effectiveness
survey
Round 1 (primary)
2012 Round 2 (primary)
School effectiveness
survey2013
Ethiopia India Vietnam
2016 Round 3 (upper primary)
School effectiveness survey
Round 2 (lower secondary)
School effectiveness survey
Round 2 (upper secondary)
School effectiveness survey2017

67. SCHOOL EFFECTIVENESS RESEARCH DESIGN
Student outcome measures Background instruments
Maths test
Repeated measures; testing mathematical
knowledge, application and reasoning skills
Principal questionnaire
Background data on the principal; school-level
information
Functional English test
Repeated measures; testing reading and
comprehension skills
Teacher questionnaire
Background data on Maths & English teachers;
class-level information
Transferable Skills test
Cross-sectional measure; testing problem-
solving and critical thinking skills
Student questionnaire
Background data on students; psycho-social
measurements
School facilities observation
Data on school infrastructure
School rosters
School, teacher, class and student rosters to
ensure identification of students and linking of
data across levels

68. SAMPLING: ETHIOPIA
 30 sites
• 20 YL
• 10 more from Round 2
school survey
 School census in each site
 Includes 62 primary
schools offering G7/G8
 Approx. 12,000 students
 Around 3,000 students
linked from Round 2
school survey in 2012/13
 100-200 YL children

69.  Sample design to explore school
choice available in each of the 20
Young Lives sites
 Sample stratified by 4 school types:
• State government schools
• Tribal/Social Welfare schools
• Private Aided schools
• Private Unaided schools
 Number of schools sampled in each
site proportional to the total
number of schools in that site:
Total number of schools in a site Proportion sampled
> 80 schools 10% sampled
21-80 20% sampled
8-20 schools 50% sampled
<8 schools 100% sampled
(Exception: less prevalent school types are oversampled)
SAMPLING: INDIA

70. SAMPLING: INDIA
 20 Young Lives sites
 212 secondary schools
• 83 State Government
• 41 Tribal/Welfare
• 31 Private aided
• 57 Private unaided
 All Class 9 students in sampled
schools: around 12,000 students
• 7,856 in Telugu medium schools
• 4,164 in English medium schools
• 200 in Urdu medium schools
 119 Young Lives children
expected to be in Class 9 at our
sampled schools
• Attending 60 schools
• 18 sites (none in Site 3 or 16)

71. SAMPLING: VIETNAM
 20 Young Lives districts
 55 upper secondary schools
 Maximum of five Grade 10 classes per
school
• Random selection process for schools with
six or more Grade 10 classes
 ~9,000 Grade 10 students
 ~1,000 Young Lives children expected to
be in Grade 10 in 2016-17
• …but maximum number of classes means
we may not include all of them
• Any primary school survey partcipants
(non-YL) to be identified retrospectively

72. Longitudinal data vs. RCT

73. Longitudinal cohort studies
• Allow to adopt an holistic approach
• Enhance understanding of how outcomes are shaped:
– Allows to identify links between earlier circumstances and later (long term) outcomes
– Identifying what shapes later well-being; when differences emerge
• Testing the ‘dynamics’ of social processes:
– Enable evaluation of the differing impacts of continuing circumstances (or one-off
changes) on later well-being, for example the consequences of chronic poverty
RCT
• RCTs can be used to give precise answers to specific questions – evaluating the specific
changes in well-being attributed to a particular programme but :
– They can only answer the question posed by the trial.
– External validity concerns
– Not able to look at long-term effects (cohort maintenance, costs)
Cross-sectional
• Representativeness
• Easier and cheaper to administer
• Useful for drawing a picture about a specific aspect of the society (e.g. DHS).
Value of longitudinal (cohort) studies vs. cross sectional data & RCT

74. They are not competing methodologies: but rather to employ each to triangulate
between methods, and to use one to inform the other (particularly relevant in
developing countries).
Triangulate between methods
C, L • Observe the problem
L
• Understand the origin of the problem (t-n,…t-2, t-1, t, t+1;
t+2,..,t+n)
L
• Identify areas worth examining in greater detail
RCT
• Test different solution and their effectiveness in the short, medium
test
L
• Understand the post-intervention dynamics and the effectiveness
in the long run
C
• Drawing a representative snapshot of the intervention status quo