This impact case study describes what Young Lives research shows about how poverty and gender combine to affect youth and adolescence. For related impact stories, please follow us on Twitter @yloxford.

In overview:

Young people now make up a quarter of the world’s population. Their economic and social potential is enormous, but needs significant investments to become a reality. Young Lives’ longitudinal approach allows us to track the routes travelled from childhood to young adulthood; the broad message is that children’s aspirations at age 12 are high, but that these are not being realised. Young Lives’ research findings on adolescence, youth, gender and poverty have had wide impact with key players including the Know Violence in Childhood Initiative, the Global Early Adolescence Study, the Lancet Standing Commission on Adolescent Health, the World Bank and Save the Children. Our research in this area finds a specific focus in work on child marriage and child-bearing. In India, Young Lives evidence has contributed directly to a change in the law which makes sex with a wife who is a child an offence of rape, and in Ethiopia findings have been shared with the Ethiopian Government and other influential stakeholders.