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

YOUNG LIVES LONGITUDINAL DESIGN

• 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

YOUNG LIVES STUDY

AGES: 1 5 8 12 15

YOU

NG

ER C

OH

OR

T

Following 2,000 children

OLD

ER C

OH

OR

T

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

VISUALISING THIS

Same age children at

different time points

Qualitative nested sample

1 2 3 4

Linked

school surveys

• 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’

Qualitative researchQUALITATIVE RESEARCH

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

200+ case study children & young people

Qualitative researchQUALITATIVE RESEARCH

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

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)

WHAT HAPPENS?

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

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?

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.”

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

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

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”

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

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’

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.

REFERENCES

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS & THANK YOU

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.

THANKS TO…

FINDING OUT MORE…

www.younglives.org.uk

• methods and research papers

• datasets (UK Data Archive)

• publications

• child profiles and photos

• e-newsletter

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