Young Lives – an International Study on Childhood Poverty: 2001-2005

The Young Lives research project (2001-2016) aims to improve our understanding of the causes and consequences of childhood poverty in the developing world. Specifically, the expected project outcomes include:

·          good quality long-term panel data about the changing nature of child poverty, including information on how children born into poverty succeed in moving out of it 

·          a methodology for monitoring child poverty which is replicable elsewhere, relatively easy and cheap to implement, and capable of generating essential information, combining qualitative and quantitative data

·          capacity strengthening of relevant personnel and institutions and increased ability to actively contribute to the policy process

·          contribution to monitoring progress towards relevant 2015 International Development Targets

Areas of investigation included economic and livelihood status; demography; physical health, mental health, nutrition and disability; education (including parental education); work (including child labour), gender differentiation, ethnicity and social capital.

In Vietnam, 3,000 children from five provinces – Lao Cai, Hung Yen, Da Nang, Phu Yen and Ben Tre were selected. Young Lives Vietnam is a collaboration between a government institution (GSO), a national non-governmental organization (RTCCD) and an international non-governmental organization (SC-UK). As a policy-oriented study, findings from the research will be used to help formulate policies to alleviate childhood poverty. As the Principal Investigator Institute for round one (2001-2005) RTCCD has undertaken and completed data collection and produced publications of the study results.

In 2005, the research team focused on further analysis, report writing and information dissemination. The published documents included 2 working papers, 4 articles in international peer-reviewed journals, 4 articles in national newspapers, 4 presentations at international conferences and a baseline journal for the research, with 10 articles written based on Young Lives information. The Young Lives baseline journal was published in collaboration with the Journal of Children and Family of VCPFC (National Committee for Population, Family and Children). In addition, the dataset from phase 1 of the study was archived to the public domain so more public users would benefit from the study.