Young Lives: an International Study of Childhood Poverty: Rounds 1-5 Constructed Files, 2002-2016

The Young Lives survey is an innovative long-term project investigating the changing nature of childhood poverty in four developing countries. The purpose of the project is to improve understanding of the causes and consequences of childhood poverty and examine how policies affect children's well-being, in order to inform the development of future policy and to target child welfare interventions more effectively. The study is being conducted in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam. These countries were selected because they reflect a range of cultural, geographical and social contexts and experience differing issues facing the developing world; high debt burden, emergence from conflict, and vulnerability to environmental conditions such as drought and flood. The Young Lives study aims to track the lives of 12,000 children over a 15-year period, surveyed once every 3-4 years. Round 1 of Young Lives surveyed two groups of children in each country, at 1 year old and 5 years old. Round 2 returned to the same children who were then aged 5 and 12 years old. Round 3 surveyed the same children again at aged 7-8 years and 14-15 years, Round 4 surveyed them at 12 and 19 years old, and Round 5 surveyed them at 15 and 22 years old. Thus the younger children are being tracked from infancy to their mid-teens and the older children through into adulthood, when some will become parents themselves.<br> <br> The survey consists of three main elements: a child questionnaire, a household questionnaire and a community questionnaire. The household data gathered is similar to other cross-sectional datasets (such as the World Bank's Living Standards Measurement Study). It covers a range of topics such as household composition, livelihood and assets, household expenditure, child health and access to basic services, and education. This is supplemented with additional questions that cover caregiver perceptions, attitudes, and aspirations for their child and the family. Young Lives also collects detailed time-use data for all family members, information about the child's weight and height (and that of caregivers), and tests the children for school outcomes (language comprehension and mathematics). An important element of the survey asks the children about their daily activities, their experiences and attitudes to work and school, their likes and dislikes, how they feel they are treated by other people, and their hopes and aspirations for the future. The community questionnaire provides background information about the social, economic and environmental context of each community. It covers topics such as ethnicity, religion, economic activity and employment, infrastructure and services, political representation and community networks, crime and environmental changes. The Young Lives survey is carried out by teams of local researchers, supported by the Principal Investigator and Data Manager in each country.<br> <br> Further information about the survey, including publications, can be downloaded from the <a href="https://www.younglives.org.uk/" title="Young Lives" target="_blank">Young Lives</a> website.<br> <br> <p><b>Constructed Files:</b><br> The <i>Rounds 1-5 Constructed Files, 2002-2016</i> are combined sub-sets of selected variables from Rounds 1-5 of the Young Lives survey. One main constructed data file is available for each of the four countries. These are presented in a panel format and contain approximately 200 original and constructed variables, with the majority comparable across all three rounds. The Stata syntax (.do) files which have been used to create the constructed data files are also included for information.<br><br><span style="font-style: italic;">Latest edition:</span><br>For the fourth edition (August 2022), the erroneous variable PREPRIM has been removed from the Vietnamese data, and an error in the labelling of the mini-communities in the Ethiopian older cohort data has been fixed.<br></p>