This is the first of the Young Lives profile books - telling the stories of 20 of the study children as they grow up. The stories tell a fascinating tale of how they children see their lives as they grow up, go to school, drop out of school, start work, cope with failed harvests and births or deaths within their families.

This book chapter presents an approach to the concept of 'resilience', the strategies that people use to cope with adversities such as poverty or conflict. For children, much attention has been paid to whether they can in some way overcome early disadvantage, although they are much more susceptible to poverty than adults, particularly due to the effect of under-nutrition. They argue that more dynamic approaches are called for which recognise that the trajectories children follow throughout their lives are constantly modified.

The first part of this book from the Chronic Poverty Research Centre provides a review of the research on poverty dynamics in developing countries. Part two focuses on poverty measurement and assessment, and discusses the most recent work of world-leading poverty analysts. The third part focuses on frameworks for understanding poverty analysis that avoid measurement and instead utilise approaches based on social relations and structural analysis.