Social determinants of wellbeing in early adolescence

Young Lives in India

Professor Jo Boyden, University of OxfordDr Renu Singh, Young Lives India

@yloxford@YoungLivesIndia

Researching adolescence in the life-course

[insert great photo]

Young Lives: childhoods in context

Young Lives in India

1. Impact of disadvantage evident at start of adolescence

2. Aspirations are high

3. Educational aspirations reflect whole family’s hopes for poverty-free future

‘Children must not be forced to do hard work from childhood itself. If they only study, it’s nice and their lives will be good.’ Harika (12 years) a rural girl.

‘If he studies and learns to read, when he grows up he need not work hard in the hot sun.’ Mother of Yaswanth (12 years) an OC boy from remote tribal area.

Yaswanth ‘I just want to lead a simple life and care of my mother and my self.’

4. Rising school enrolment offers a platform for engaging adolescents

Source Briones (2017)

5. Most young adolescents are not fulfilling their potential

6. Gendered responsibilities grow from early adolescence

7. Poverty, risk and responsibility in early adolescence shape later trajectories

Predictors of secondary school completion: •No paid work at 12 years •Fewer hours of domestic chores (girls)•Better reading scores at age 8•Higher self-efficacy at age 12

Predictors of early marriage & adolescent fertility•Not enrolled at 15 years•Lower parental & child aspirations for education•Parental expectation that daughter would marry before 19 years•Lower wealth & caregiver aspiration•Earlier age at menarche•Having an older brother

Shocks intensify pressures but unevenly.Adult illness and dowry expenses have long term consequences for children in the household.

8. Violence is pervasive in the lives of many children and adolescents

‘If we are not naughty and listen to what the sirs are

saying… then they don’t beat us. Some children keep staring outside the windows then they

beat us’

Now no one stays back after school Big boys used to come and sit there, at the school... Because other boys come to the school, so [the girls] don’t come now.(15 year old girl)

‘My father goes for work and comes back drunk and beats my mother. If I go in the middle he will beat me!.. I want to take my mother and leave this village… When I grow up I would like to be good .. I will love my wife and not drink liquor or smoke beedi.’(13 year old boy)

‘I do not like my school, since the teachers beat me badly. They beat with a stick on my back, even if we are sitting and talking…..’(Government School student)

9. Poverty and discriminatory gender norms are mutually reinforcing

Bhavana’s mother did not complete primary school and married at 12.

Bhavana left school after Grade 2 following the death of her father and the family migrating for seasonal work to Mumbai.

Her mother believed : “It makes no difference whether educated or not educated … even if she were to be educated, still it not possible to get a job; she might still have to work; there are no jobs around. Then what’s the point in getting schooled? …I haven’t seen a single person from this village getting a job and feeding others.’

Interviewer: Do you find any difference in the work done and the life between you and your mother?

Bhavana: I saw my mother since my childhood … she has been doing hard work without taking a break even for a day… It is same [for me ... I am also working in the same way.

www.younglives.org.uk @YLOxford@YoungLivesIndia

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