This report synthesises Young Lives research into the role of education in the lives of children growing up in diverse contexts and draws on evidence about the effectiveness of school systems in delivering positive outcomes for all children and combatting the effects of child poverty; but also, the respects in which school systems may fail to ensure quality learning for all and may be reinforcing poverty-linked inequalities.

The authors study the relationship between child work and cognitive development in the four Young Lives countries. They address a key weakness in the literature by including children’s full time-use vector in the analysis, which leads to different findings from previous studies which do not distinguish between alternative counter-factual activities. They find child work is only detrimental if it crowds out school/study time rather than leisure. Furthermore, the marginal effects of substituting domestic chores or economic activities for school/study time are similar.