Young Lives has ambitious plans to build on the large body of evidence from our 20 year study and to expand and innovate our research programme to adapt to rapid global change. 

We are currently seeking funds to develop and expand on our current themes, Family Lives and Health and Well-being, and our cross-cutting themes, New Vulnerabilities and Gender and Intersecting Inequalities.

Young Lives is also working towards an ambitious multidisciplinary study, that establishes a new birth cohort, incorporating the children of the Young Lives children, as well as other children in our study countries born during the COVID-19 pandemic.

If you interested in finding our more, or collaborating with us, please contact the Young Lives team via our Inbox at younglives@qeh.ox.ac.uk.

Young lives research has shown the important role that family plays in livelihood decisions. Now in their third decade of life, many of the young people in our study have formed relationships through formal or informal marriage and cohabitation, are managing their own households, and having children. This new research, under our Family Lives theme, seeks to contextualise the work that young people undertake in their home lives, and understand the competing demands of caring responsibilities, social norms, family and fertility decisions of young people and how these impact decisions on paid employment or entrepreneurship.

Young Lives evidence documents the importance of early life nutrition and health on later life outcomes including on learning and skills. Our recent phone survey uncovered the alarming impact COVID-19 is having on young people's mental health, food security and well-being in all study countries. Our research will include documenting the importance of nutrition through the life-course and health-seeking decisions, as well as the long-term impacts of health shocks. We will also investigate the evolution of physical and mental health through and beyond the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as early-life determinants of mental health, and the complex interplay between mental health and employment.

We have an exciting proposal to establish a brand new birth cohort, incorporating the children of the Young Lives children, as well as other children in our study countries born during the COVID-19 pandemic. This ambitious multidisciplinary study will research the development of those born into an unprecedented global crisis, We will research intergenerational and intersecting inequalities in well-being as this cohort ages and faces both the ongoing pandemic and an ever more severe climate crisis.

Our research will be focused through two complementary lenses, or cross-cutting themes: New Vulnerabilities, and Gender and Intersecting Inequalities. Together, these characterise the challenges young people are facing as they transition to adulthood.

This bold new work programme focuses on a cross-cutting issue, the New Vulnerabilities that young people are facing, which are unprecedented in the past century, and include:

• Climate: this worsening crisis is now causing intense stress in the poorest communities, 
• Covid-19: the global health pandemic has caused economic disaster with young people in the global South particularly hard hit in terms of their studying, jobs and increased responsibilities.  
• Conflict: Initial results from our phone survey in 2020 showed that the mental health of young people was affected by the conflict in Northern Ethiopia, even for those living outside the conflict zone.

We have begun to document the potential long-lasting effects that climate shocks, such as droughts, flooding, and extreme temperatures, have on children’s development including their health and educational trajectories. Further research is needed to understand the cumulative effects of multiple shocks, and where policy may be able to make a difference.  

In the past year, Young Lives has documented the short-term effect of the COVID-19 crisis on young people. Multiple impacts including interrupted education, stress and lowered well-being, widening inequalities between men and women in the labour market as well as a digital divide in education, affect the most vulnerable young people most. This ongoing crisis requires careful monitoring and a joined-up approach to policy. Young Lives research will contribute to understanding the challenges that the pandemic triggered economic crisis poses for young people who are completing their education, beginning their careers and navigating their personal lives.

We also wish to strengthen our research focus on “Gender and Intersecting Inequalities”, a cross-cutting theme, as well as a lens through which our research can be understood.  In the first phase of Young Lives (2001-2016), a strong poverty focus matched the global policy priorities, however our research, despite documenting an overall improvement in wellbeing over time, again and again documents persistent inequalities that show poorer nutrition, lower educational attainment, and more insecure livelihoods for children and young people in marginalised groups (ethnicity, caste, location) that intersect with gender. This speaks to the policy agenda set by the Sustainable Development Goals moving from an emphasis on poverty, to the root causes of inequality.