Young Lives has created an exhibition featuring 12 new photographs, three from each of our study countries, to illustrate our current research themes and headline findings.
To view, click through and read the accompanying text to find out more about what life is like for the young people in our study as they leave education, start work and form families and the challenges they face.
The children and families who participate in Young Lives share with us a great deal of personal
information about their daily lives. It is important that we protect their anonymity and confidentiality. The photos in this exhibition are not of the Young Lives study children but are of children living in similar circumstances and communities and we thank them for their consent to share these images of their daily lives.
Young Lives is a unique longitudinal research study that has been following the lives of 12,000 young people in Ethiopia, India (the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana), Peru and Vietnam since 2002. Originally set up to follow children born at the launch of the Millennium Development Goals, Young Lives provides vital evidence on the consequences of growing up in poverty and inequality, informing policies to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. The study is divided into two age groups: 8,000 young people born in 2001 (the Younger Cohort) and 4,000 born in 1994 (the Older Cohort).
Mulu, a young Ethiopian woman who had to work after the death of her father and struggled throughout childhood to stay in school, is now at university, and says,
‘My life will be better than my mother’s because I am educated.’
Like Mulu, many young people in the study have experienced significant improvements in their living standards as global poverty rates have fallen. At the same time, inequalities are widening, leaving the poorest and those living in rural or minority communities behind in deep pockets of poverty. These widening inequalities threaten the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
The COVID-19 pandemic, climate crisis and conflict are having multiple and compounding social and economic impacts on young people in low- and middle-income countries, increasing inequalities and further reversing progress seen since the start of the millennium. During the pandemic, girls and young women suffered disproportionately from the combined pressures of interrupted education and increased domestic work and childcare.
Experiencing climate shocks early in life – such as droughts or floods – can affect children's growth, nutritional health, skills development and progress in school. Children living in the poorest households are significantly more affected by such events, with negative effects persisting across generations. Rainfall shocks experienced in the first 1,000 days of life (including in-utero) can affect a child’s vocabulary by the age of 5, with long-lasting adverse effects on their foundational cognitive skills by the age of 12.
There has been a dramatic rise in school attendance, but this has not led to increased learning for all. Children from the poorest households, in rural areas, and from minority communities are consistently underperforming in skills and educational outcomes, with inequalities emerging very early in life.
Investment in quality early learning is vital for children’s skills development, but the benefits of increased access to education will only be reaped if accompanied by a supportive and enabling environment to help keep young people in education with sufficient resources and time to study – without this, investment in schools will have much lower rewards.
Social protection schemes (such as cash transfers or food aid) are designed to support households in the face of adverse events or chronic poverty. These programmes can have huge benefits for disadvantaged children, including for their long-term growth and nutritional health.
Young Lives’ research in Ethiopia and Peru shows that social protection can reverse the negative effects of early poverty and climate shocks on children’s foundational cognitive skills – the basic building blocks for life-long learning – such as long-term memory and the ability to concentrate on a specific task.
While early childhood is a critical period in shaping lives, adolescence provides a second window of opportunity. Young Lives’ longitudinal evidence shows that children whose early growth is stunted can catch up well beyond the first 1,000 days, even up to the age of 15, and that physical recovery is associated with better education outcomes.
While girls and boys have similar skills in the early years, gender differences become more marked in adolescence. By the age of 15, girls in India underperform in mathematics and literacy tests compared to boys, while in Vietnam, girls outperform boys in both tests. Adolescent girls are particularly disadvantaged in social and emotional skills associated with empowerment, across all four study countries. Country-specific gender norms and other intersecting inequalities have a profound impact on girls’ and boys’ ability to attain skills equally.
Many of the young people in our study are now married or living with a partner, setting up households and having children of their own. Some children have been able to beat the odds to achieve fulfilled and stable livelihoods, but persistent inequalities and patriarchal norms continue to shape and influence young women’s and young men’s life choices and limit their possibilities for personal and social change.
Despite positive trends, many girls still get married in their teenage years, particularly those from the poorest households, in rural areas, and whose mothers are less educated. Being out of school in adolescence is strongly associated with early marriage.
While many of the young people we have been following are now supporting their own households, getting a decent job is much harder for women than it is for men. The gap between the numbers of young women and men in paid work increased significantly during the pandemic, and it took longer for women to return to work because of the increasing burden of unpaid caring responsibilities.
While better skills can help young women access higher education and secure decent jobs, this is not guaranteed. Gender discrimination is still holding many young women back, especially in times of crisis.
Global crises are taking their toll on young people’s mental health at a time in their lives when they may be particularly vulnerable to developing long-term mental health conditions. Experiences of anxiety and depression increased as the pandemic became more severe, with declining well-being reversing previous positive trends.
Food insecurity, job losses, financial hardship, interrupted schooling and increasing unpaid care work have all been shown to have an impact on young people’s mental health. In Ethiopia, the outbreak of conflict in 2020 has also led to a significant decline in young people’s mental well-being.
Young Lives is returning to the field in 2023 to carry out our latest round of in-person survey interviews (Round 7), after conducting five phone surveys during the pandemic. With our study respondents now aged 22 and 29, our new survey will focus on how they are faring in young adulthood, asking a broad range of questions about their physical and mental health, education, work and family formation.
Beyond Round 7: We are fundraising for further rounds of the Young Lives study; please get in touch if you would like to partner with us: younglives@qeh.ox.ac.uk
© Young Lives / Aida Ashenafi/Antonio Fiorente/Ato Mulugeta Gebrekidan Desta/Farhatulla Beigh/Mudupo Sharath Babu/Sebastian Castañeda Vita/Duong Quoc Binh
Young Lives has created an exhibition featuring 12 new photographs, three from each of our study countries, to illustrate our current research themes and headline findings.
To view, click through and read the accompanying text to find out more about what life is like for the young people in our study as they leave education, start work and form families and the challenges they face.
The children and families who participate in Young Lives share with us a great deal of personal
information about their daily lives. It is important that we protect their anonymity and confidentiality. The photos in this exhibition are not of the Young Lives study children but are of children living in similar circumstances and communities and we thank them for their consent to share these images of their daily lives.
Young Lives is a unique longitudinal research study that has been following the lives of 12,000 young people in Ethiopia, India (the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana), Peru and Vietnam since 2002. Originally set up to follow children born at the launch of the Millennium Development Goals, Young Lives provides vital evidence on the consequences of growing up in poverty and inequality, informing policies to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. The study is divided into two age groups: 8,000 young people born in 2001 (the Younger Cohort) and 4,000 born in 1994 (the Older Cohort).
Mulu, a young Ethiopian woman who had to work after the death of her father and struggled throughout childhood to stay in school, is now at university, and says,
‘My life will be better than my mother’s because I am educated.’
Like Mulu, many young people in the study have experienced significant improvements in their living standards as global poverty rates have fallen. At the same time, inequalities are widening, leaving the poorest and those living in rural or minority communities behind in deep pockets of poverty. These widening inequalities threaten the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
The COVID-19 pandemic, climate crisis and conflict are having multiple and compounding social and economic impacts on young people in low- and middle-income countries, increasing inequalities and further reversing progress seen since the start of the millennium. During the pandemic, girls and young women suffered disproportionately from the combined pressures of interrupted education and increased domestic work and childcare.
Experiencing climate shocks early in life – such as droughts or floods – can affect children's growth, nutritional health, skills development and progress in school. Children living in the poorest households are significantly more affected by such events, with negative effects persisting across generations. Rainfall shocks experienced in the first 1,000 days of life (including in-utero) can affect a child’s vocabulary by the age of 5, with long-lasting adverse effects on their foundational cognitive skills by the age of 12.
There has been a dramatic rise in school attendance, but this has not led to increased learning for all. Children from the poorest households, in rural areas, and from minority communities are consistently underperforming in skills and educational outcomes, with inequalities emerging very early in life.
Investment in quality early learning is vital for children’s skills development, but the benefits of increased access to education will only be reaped if accompanied by a supportive and enabling environment to help keep young people in education with sufficient resources and time to study – without this, investment in schools will have much lower rewards.
Social protection schemes (such as cash transfers or food aid) are designed to support households in the face of adverse events or chronic poverty. These programmes can have huge benefits for disadvantaged children, including for their long-term growth and nutritional health.
Young Lives’ research in Ethiopia and Peru shows that social protection can reverse the negative effects of early poverty and climate shocks on children’s foundational cognitive skills – the basic building blocks for life-long learning – such as long-term memory and the ability to concentrate on a specific task.
While early childhood is a critical period in shaping lives, adolescence provides a second window of opportunity. Young Lives’ longitudinal evidence shows that children whose early growth is stunted can catch up well beyond the first 1,000 days, even up to the age of 15, and that physical recovery is associated with better education outcomes.
While girls and boys have similar skills in the early years, gender differences become more marked in adolescence. By the age of 15, girls in India underperform in mathematics and literacy tests compared to boys, while in Vietnam, girls outperform boys in both tests. Adolescent girls are particularly disadvantaged in social and emotional skills associated with empowerment, across all four study countries. Country-specific gender norms and other intersecting inequalities have a profound impact on girls’ and boys’ ability to attain skills equally.
Many of the young people in our study are now married or living with a partner, setting up households and having children of their own. Some children have been able to beat the odds to achieve fulfilled and stable livelihoods, but persistent inequalities and patriarchal norms continue to shape and influence young women’s and young men’s life choices and limit their possibilities for personal and social change.
Despite positive trends, many girls still get married in their teenage years, particularly those from the poorest households, in rural areas, and whose mothers are less educated. Being out of school in adolescence is strongly associated with early marriage.
While many of the young people we have been following are now supporting their own households, getting a decent job is much harder for women than it is for men. The gap between the numbers of young women and men in paid work increased significantly during the pandemic, and it took longer for women to return to work because of the increasing burden of unpaid caring responsibilities.
While better skills can help young women access higher education and secure decent jobs, this is not guaranteed. Gender discrimination is still holding many young women back, especially in times of crisis.
Global crises are taking their toll on young people’s mental health at a time in their lives when they may be particularly vulnerable to developing long-term mental health conditions. Experiences of anxiety and depression increased as the pandemic became more severe, with declining well-being reversing previous positive trends.
Food insecurity, job losses, financial hardship, interrupted schooling and increasing unpaid care work have all been shown to have an impact on young people’s mental health. In Ethiopia, the outbreak of conflict in 2020 has also led to a significant decline in young people’s mental well-being.
Young Lives is returning to the field in 2023 to carry out our latest round of in-person survey interviews (Round 7), after conducting five phone surveys during the pandemic. With our study respondents now aged 22 and 29, our new survey will focus on how they are faring in young adulthood, asking a broad range of questions about their physical and mental health, education, work and family formation.
Beyond Round 7: We are fundraising for further rounds of the Young Lives study; please get in touch if you would like to partner with us: younglives@qeh.ox.ac.uk
© Young Lives / Aida Ashenafi/Antonio Fiorente/Ato Mulugeta Gebrekidan Desta/Farhatulla Beigh/Mudupo Sharath Babu/Sebastian Castañeda Vita/Duong Quoc Binh