12,000 children in 4 countries over 15 years
About Young Lives
Young Lives in Ethiopia
Young Lives is a unique international study of
childhood poverty following the changing lives
of 12,000 children in 4 countries – Ethiopia,
India (in the state of Andhra Pradesh), Peru and
Vietnam – over 15 years (2000 to 2015). This is
the timeframe set by the United Nations to track
progress towards the Millennium Development
Goals.
In Ethiopia, we are working with 2,000 children
who were born in 2000-01 and 1,000 children
born in 1994-95. We visit the children and
interview them as well as their caregivers
and community representatives (such as the
teacher or health worker) every three years. The
children live in 20 communities spread across
five regions – Addis Ababa, Amhara, Oromia,
the Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples
Region, and Tigray. The communities were
selected to be broadly representative of a range
of different circumstances within the country,
and cover different geographical regions, levels
of development, urban/rural locations, and
population characteristics.
The aims of Young Lives are to provide goodquality information about the lives of children
living in poverty, to trace linkages between
policy changes and children’s well-being, and
to promote pro-poor and pro-child policies and
programmes.
www.younglives-ethiopia.org
How do we conduct our
research?
Our survey covers a broad range of issues
related to children’s well-being – their health,
nutrition and education, access to services,
household circumstances, and family and
community support. So far three rounds of
survey data have been collected, in 2002, 2006
and 2009. A fourth round is taking place in late
2013, with a fifth round to follow in 2016.
Between the survey rounds, we carry out
in-depth qualitative research with a smaller
number of children, focusing on selected issues
that affect child well-being. This includes their
experiences at school, their work and role in the
family, how they use their time, their perceptions
of poverty and their environment, and their
hopes for the future. In 2010 we also started a
survey of the children’s schools to help us better
understand the resources available for their
education and how this affects their learning
outcomes.
Our data
Data from the household and child surveys
are anonymised and publicly archived, They
are available to download from the UK Data
Service, along with the documentation and
questionnaires for each survey round. For users
in Ethiopia, the data are also available on CDRom on request from the Principal Investigator
based at the Ethiopian Development Research
Institute. If you would like access, email
younglivesethiopia@gmail.com
www.younglives-ethiopia.org
Some findings to date
Young Lives is already delivering compelling
evidence across a wide range of key research
and policy debates. The power of the study is
growing with each new data round, delivering
even stronger evidence on the impacts of
poverty and inequality across critical periods of
children’s lifespan.
■■ Wealth, consumption and poverty: There
have been substantial improvements in
child welfare outcomes such as malnutrition
(stunting, wasting), enrolment in primary
school, and subjective well-being. We have
also observed increases in household
wealth in terms of ownership of assets and
access to services.
■■ Access to services: Although this has
improved, there are still considerable
differences between rural and urban areas
in access to safe drinking water, sanitation
and electricity. Access to safe water
increased from 11% of households in 2002
to 17% in 2009. And almost 58% of the
households had access to sanitation (a pit
latrine or flush toilet), up from 22% in 2002.
■■ Health and nutrition: Malnutrition is an
important dimension of child poverty
because of the recognised link to other
outcomes such as learning. When we
compare the stunting and severe stunting
of the Older Cohort children who were
aged 8 in 2002 with that of the Younger
Cohort children aged 8 in 2009, we see a
remarkable improvement, possibly because
of support programmes, including food
aid, the Productive Safety Net Public Works
Programme, the Agricultural Extension
Programme, and Health Extension Services.
■■ Education and schooling: We have
seen considerable progress in terms of
enrolment. While in 2002 only 66% of
8-year-olds were enrolled in school, in
2009 77% of 8-year-old children were in
school (89% in urban areas and 69% in
rural areas). Despite these improvements,
challenges remain in drop-out rates and
also in delivering good quality education to
improve children’s learning.
■■ Children’s work and time use: More than
90% of the 8-year-olds and 98% of the
15-year-olds were involved in some kind of
work, paid or unpaid, in 2009.
■■ Subjective well-being: In line with its
multidimensional approach to poverty,
Young Lives also assesses children’s
subjective well-being. Results from a selfadministered questionnaire given to the
older children indicate that about two-thirds
of them feel that their parents (or caregivers)
treat them fairly, and 62% (65% of boys
and 59% of girls) feel that they are free to
speak about their feelings with their parents.
However, over 28% of the young people
expressed a feeling of often being unhappy,
downhearted or tearful, while 14% say they
worry a lot.
Our communications and
policy work
The information that the children, their families
and community leaders share with the Young
Lives team is analysed to help us understand
the impact of poverty on their lives. The policy
and communication team based at Save the
Children ensure that the findings are shared
and disseminated with relevant government
bodies, researchers and other organisations
working on social issues through publications,
meetings, regional and international
conferences, and through our country website
(www.younglives-ethiopia.org) as well as the
international website (www.younglives.org.uk).
Child Research and
Practice Forum (CRPF)
A good example of Young Lives Ethiopia’s
work in linking policy and practice is the
Child Research and Practice Forum which
was established in September 2010 with
the aim to promote the dissemination of
research and to facilitate dialogue between
researchers, policymakers, practitioners
and other stakeholders. The Forum holds a
monthly seminar at the Ministry of Women,
Children and Youth Affairs where research
on children is presented followed by debates
and discussion.
To sign up to the CRPF newsletter, please
contact Lishan Woldemedihin
(Lishan.Woldemedihin
@savethechildren.org).
www.younglives-ethiopia.org
The Young Lives team
Our team in Ethiopia brings together experienced individuals with an appropriate mix of skills to achieve
our aims. The team is coordinated by the Ethiopia Country Director, Dr Alula Pankhurst.
Ethiopia partners
■■ Ethiopian Development Research Institute: the survey and data managment is led and carried out by
a team based at EDRI
■■ Save the Children: manages the policy and communication work of Young Lives in Ethiopia
■■ Individual researchers: the qualitative part of our research is carried out by independent researchers.
International partners
■■ At an international level, Young Lives involves 12 collaborative partners across the four study
countries. It is coordinated by a team based at the Department of International Development,
University of Oxford, led by Professor Jo Boyden.
Note: When the children agreed to be part of our study, we promised not to share their personal information. It is
an important part of our relationship with them that we respect this trust they have given us. In order to protect
the children’s anonymity, the pictures we use here are not of the Young Lives children, but are of children living in
similar circumstances in similar communities. For this reason, we also change the children’s and community names
in the reports we write and don’t reveal their real names or locations.
Young Lives is funded from 2001 to 2017 by UK aid from the
Department for International Development (DFID) and co-funded from
2010 to 2014 by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Focused
sub-studies in Ethiopia have been funded by the Bernard van Leer
Foundation (on early childhood), International Development Research
Centre (on social protection), and the Oak Foundation (on risk and
resilience and on work).
Contact us:
Young Lives in Ethiopia, Save the Children
PO Box 387, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Tel: +251 11 3720030 • Email: younglivesethiopia@gmail.com
www.younglives-ethiopia.org (Ethiopia website)
September 2013
www.younglives.org.uk (international study website)