Abstract: In panel studies, respondents are lost when they die, decide to drop out of the study, or when they cannot be traced during later rounds of data collection. Much has been written about attrition, the loss of individuals over time, in developed countries, but literature from developing countries is scarce. The experiences from developed countries may not be relevant for developing countries as the main reasons for attrition differ.

Through sharing children's own perspectives on the world and documenting their reflections and responses to the research, Young Lives is working to ensure that children's voices are heard.

In 2008, Young Lives produced a book - Nothing is impossible for me - which captures stories of twenty of the Young Lives children together with survey data from each country to bring the Young Lives data to life and set out the broader context of children living in poverty.

This report presents initial findings from the third round of data collection by Young Lives in Peru, carried out from late 2009 to early 2010 with two age cohorts of children. It gives a broad outline of some of the key indicators of childhood poverty and changes that have taken place in the children?s lives between the earlier rounds of data collection in 2002 and 2006 and this third round. Data are mainly presented for the entire age cohort, in most cases separated into gender, wealth groups, rural/urban location, and maternal mother tongue (as a proxy of ethnicity).

This Technical Note accompanies the Constructed Files of Young Lives data which have been deposited with the UK Data Service to facilitate analysis of the household and child surveys across the first three rounds of data collected.