This report presents initial analysis of the first round of qualitative data collected between September and November 2007 as part of the Young Lives study in Ethiopia. Data collection was carried out in five of the twenty Young Lives study communities, with both cohorts of children – the younger cohort (then aged between 6 and 7 years) and the older cohort (ages 12 to 13) – as well as their caregivers, teachers, health workers, and community representatives.

Participatory research into how people living in material poverty define and experience well-being and ill-being is increasingly common in developed and developing countries. Such research highlights the importance of experiential aspects such as being respected and able to preserve one's dignity, and having meaningful choices. But these findings rarely cover children's experiences and are often not contextualised or triangulated with other data.

This article analyses how children in Ethiopia respond to household adversity in the context of poverty. It highlights the association between poverty and other forms of hardship and the complex interplay of risk and protective factors in young people's lives. It argues that identifying adversity is not straightforward because beliefs affect the outcomes of such experiences, and different cultures and actors hold different views on the matter, so that assumed risks can in some cases be protective and foster specific competencies in the young.