Guest lecture given by Virginia Morrow to students on the Masters in Childhood Studies and Children's Rights at the Freie Universititaet, Berlin, 3 December 2014. http://www.ewi-psy.fu-berlin.de/en/einrichtungen/weitere/enmcr/news/Gastvortrag-Virginia-Morrow.html

1. Great Expectations or Failed
Aspirations?
Findings from 10 years
of Young Lives
Virginia Morrow
Senior Research Officer, Deputy Director, Young Lives
Freie Universität, Berlin, 3 December 2014

2. YOUNG LIVES LONGITUDINAL DESIGN
YOUNG LIVES STUDY
• 12,000 children in Ethiopia, India (former Andhra Pradesh), Peru, Vietnam
• Two age cohorts in each country:
- 2,000 children born in 2000-01
- 1,000 children born in 1994-95
• Pro-poor sample: 20 sites in each country selected to reflect country
diversity, rural-urban, livelihoods, ethnicity, gender
• 4 major household survey rounds: in 2002; 2006/7; 2009; 2013. Final round
2016
• Qualitative research
• School study and other studies
• Comprehensive focus – nutrition, development, cognitive and psycho-social,
education, social protection
• Partnership of government and independent research institutes
• Commissioned by UK Dept for International Development
• Tracking progress of the Millennium Development Goals
• Informing post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals agenda

3. VISUALISING THIS
Same age children at
different time points
Qualitative nested sample
1 2 3 4
AGES: 1 5 8 12 15
YOUNGER COHORT
Following 2,000 children
OLDER COHORT
Following 1,000 children
AGES: 8 12 15 19 22
Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 Round 4 Round 5
2002 2006 2009 2013 2016
Linked
school surveys

4. QualitativQeU reAsLeIaTArcThIVE RESEARCH
• Focus on the daily lives and well-being of
children and young people in a selection
of YL communities – rapid social change
and modernity/globalisation
• Capture important changes during
childhood and children’s trajectories - a
life-course approach
• Understand how policies and services
are experienced by children (and
caregivers) - inequalities - and who is
‘left behind’

5. QualitativQeU reAsLeIaTArcThIVE RESEARCH
200+ case study children & young people
 sub-sample of 50 young people in
each country (equal numbers of boys
and girls and younger and older
cohort)
 including focus children, their
carers, teachers, community
representatives
 four communities (AP and
Telangana, Peru and Vietnam) and five
communities (Ethiopia)
combination of methods, including
interviews, group discussions,
creative/visual methods

6. TEN YEARS IN CHILDREN’S LIVES
• Economies of all four countries grew rapidly in the first decade of the 21st
century
• Growth was accompanied by infrastructural improvements and increased
service access (associated with the MDGs) e.g.
- primary school enrolment = near universal across the sample in 3 of our
countries and rapidly increasing in Ethiopia
- in Peru access to safe water increased by 50% between 2002 and 2009
- internet access is now widespread in Vietnam
- increased external investment, road & communications infrastructure in Ethiopia
Social protection:
– MGNREGA, India; Juntos, Peru; PSNP, Ethiopia
– Health insurance in Vietnam, Peru and in India; Health Extension Workers in
Ethiopia

7. ASPIRATIONS ARE HIGH
• In 2006 between 75 and 90% of 12 year olds aspired to vocational
training or university – this mostly persists at 19 years
• They want better jobs than their parents
- We’re not going to suffer like this in the mud ...it’s better that I go
and study. (Marta, 15 years, Peru)
- If one can learn and study hard, they will always have a good job at
the end that can change their family’s life. (Fatuma, 15 years,
Ethiopia)
- We see our parents working, they work in the fields, and work hard
daily… and we feel that we should not be like that…. (Harika, 16 years
old, rural Telangana)
• They said the best age for marriage and childbearing is mid-20s
(varies by country and gender)

8. WHAT HAPPENS?

9. WHAT WERE THEY DOING AT AGE 19?
• Ethiopia – 59%; AP India 49%; Peru 45%; Vietnam 48% - are
still studying, often combined with paid work
• The least poor, those whose parents had higher levels of
education, and those in urban areas stay longer in school
• Gender differences: Young men are more likely to be
studying in AP, India; young women in Ethiopia and
Vietnam
Young women - married Given birth
• 37% – AP India 24% - Peru
• 25% - Peru 21% - AP India
• 19% - Vietnam 12% - Vietnam
• 13% - Ethiopia 9% - Ethiopia

10. WHOSE VALUES? QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
• Emphasis on school enrolment in MDGS
• ‘Successful and unsuccessful transitions’
• ‘Left behind’ in development – individualised
• Burden of expectation placed on children
• How is this experienced by children, and how
do they manage demands on their time?
• How do they value different dimensions of
their lives?

11. HARIKA IN POOMPUHAR, IN RURAL TELANGANA
• 2007 - Her father had injured his leg and could not work
• Harika was involved in cotton pollination work and going to
school
• Found it difficult to manage both: “if I go to the fields I won’t get
an education”
• Wanted to become a teacher
• In 2008, had received a scholarship of Rs 6,000/- per year,
payable conditional on completing school
• Was responsible for some aspects of farm work
• In 2010 – at College, aspiring to be a doctor: “You will have a
better life if you study… you will get better jobs… you will get an
educated husband.”

12. RANADEEP
• In 2007 was missing school to work, but was optimistic
• 2008 - wanting to migrate, open a shop. Wanted to
continue his schooling, but complained about working
• 2010 had failed Grade 10: “I will be a waste”
• Can’t ask his family for support: “I know they are
struggling”; crop failure because of drought;
indebtedness
• Wants to support his mother/family
• 2013 – had returned to college

13. SANTHI, IN PATNA, REMOTE TRIBAL AP
• Father a teacher; the family moved to a town to
access better quality schooling
• 2007 and 2008, Santhi wanted to be a doctor
• Was doing well at school, but during Grade 10, fell
behind due to ill health
• 2010, was in Intermediate College, studying Maths
• Indebted to her parents, and feels pressure: “I am
frightened whether I will reach the expectations for
the support they gave me. … the only way to repay
their support is to study well and score good marks
and achieve a good position in society about which
my parents feel proud and be happy without any
worries”
• Refused to discuss the possibility of marriage

14. YASWANTH
• Father died when he was in Grade 1 aged about 6:
“Mother struggled, worked hard and took care of me and
my sister”
• In 2007, helping his mother at home, fetching water,
firewood, buying provisions
• Mother had high hopes for him for a ‘small job’ so he can
take care of her in the future
• 2010 – struggling at school, fearful he would not complete
Grade 10: “I feel I want to study, but I can’t… the lessons
are hard to understand”
• Debts worry him and his mother
• Will look for “anything that will earn me and my mother
enough to lead a happy life… we must have the capacity
to earn”

15. DISCUSSION
• Sense of obligation to parents – family values, especially
boys who want to care for parents/mothers
• Whether through achievement in school, or work
• Patriarchal conventions means that girls will leave
family of origin
• But affect boys too – wanting to marry a girl ‘less
educated’ than themselves
• Circumstances constrain children’s capacity to study but
they risk blaming themselves or being blamed for
‘failure’
• Becoming a farmer is not valued as an aspiration
• All sit uneasily with dominant approaches to youth and
adolescence in international policy discourses

16. UN CRC @ 25: ‘AN UNFINISHED AGENDA’
• Progress achieved though holistic approach to child
development: child survival and enrolment in school
• BUT widespread inequities affecting the poorest and most
vulnerable children = a global issue
• ‘Need to reduce implementation gap between principles and
rights enshrined in UN CRC and actual living conditions of the
most marginalised and excluded girls and boys’
• ‘Many children find themselves living with multiple risks and
multiple hazards … action must be on the basis of mappings of
vulnerability that reflects these complexities’

17. REFERENCES
REFERENCES
Jo Boyden (2013) ‘“We’re not going to suffer like this in the mud”: Educational Aspirations,
Social Mobility and Independent Child Migration among Populations Living in Poverty’,
Compare 43.4: 580-600.
Jo Boyden and Michael Bourdillon (eds) (2012) Childhood Poverty, Multidisciplinary
Approaches. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Jo Boyden and Michael Bourdillon (eds) (2014) Growing Up in Poverty: Findings from Young
Lives, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Gina Crivello (2011) ‘Becoming Somebody: Youth Transitions through Education and Migration
in Peru’, Journal of Youth Studies 14.4: 395-411.
Gina Crivello, Virginia Morrow and Emma Wilson (2013) Young Lives Longitudinal Qualitative
Research: A Guide for Researchers, Technical Note 26, Oxford: Young Lives.
Paul Dornan and Kirrily Pells (2014) From Infancy to Adolescence: Growing Up in Poverty:
Preliminary findings from Round 4 of Young Lives, Oxford: Young Lives.
Virginia Morrow (2013) ‘Whose Values? Young People’s Aspirations and Experiences of
Schooling in Andhra Pradesh, India’, Children & Society 27.4: 258-269.
UN Secretary-General (2014) Status of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, New York:
United Nations.

18. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS & THANK YOU
THANKS TO…
Young Lives children, parents/caregivers as well as
community leaders, teachers, health workers and
others in communities
Fieldworkers, data-managers, survey enumerators
and supervisors, principal investigators and country
directors in each country
Oxford team
Funders: DFID, DGIS, IrishAid, Oak Foundation,
Bernard Van Leer Foundation.

19. FINDING OUT MORE…
FINDING OUT MORE
www.younglives.org.uk
• methods and research papers
• datasets (UK Data Archive)
• publications
• child profiles and photos
• e-newsletter