Reconciling numbers and qualitative data in Young Lives, a 15-year study of children growing up in Ethiopia, Andhra Pradesh India, Peru & Vietnam

Virginia Morrow

ESRC Research Methods Festival Mixed Methods Panel

St Catherine’s College, Oxford 10th July 2014

YOUNG LIVES LONGITUDINAL DESIGN

• 12,000 children in Ethiopia, India (Andhra Pradesh), Peru, Vietnam

• Two age cohorts in each country:- 2,000 children born in 2000-01- 1,000 children born in 1994-95

• Pro-poor sample: 20 sites in each country selected to reflect country diversity, rural-urban, livelihoods, ethnicity, gender

• 4 major household survey rounds completed so far: in 2002; 2006/7; 2009; 2013 – final round 2017.

• Qualitative research • School study• Comprehensive focus – nutrition, development, cognitive and

psycho-social, education, social protection

• Partnership of government and independent research institutes

• Commissioned by UK Dept for International Development

Survey data include:

• Household food and non-food consumption and expenditure

• Economic changes and recent life history• Parental background• Livelihoods and assets• Socio-economic status• Children’s time use• Child health and well-being• Anthropometry• Education experiences• Caregiver perceptions• Cognitive development & vocabulary scores

(Survey data are available at UK Data Archive)

Qualitative research:

Longitudinal qualitative data are being collected from a sub-sample of both cohorts – 50 children in each country

3 rounds of data have been collected (2007, 2008, 2011) with a further round ongoing 2014.

Methods include: child interviews, caregiver interviews, group discussions, group activities, data gathered using creative methods, teacher interviews, etc.

Focus on children’s daily lives – time-use, school, work, transitions, aspirations, experiences, well-being.

What kinds of childhood are imagined and created through the research?

• A range of disciplines, so a range of understandings of childhood?

• Economics: children as future human capital, childhood separate from adulthood

• Sociology: children as (constrained) social actors, lived realities of children, relational understanding

• Limitations: futurity, profitability, instrumental view of children vs. Small scale of ethnographic work – numbers matter.

Binary division between qual/quant

Quantitative• Magnitude• Distribution• Prevalence• Proportion• Objective ‘facts’• Conclusive• Generalisable• Outliers – ignore!• Value-base – implicit• Lack of conceptualisation• Human capital - future• Focus on individual• Simple policy solutions – • abolitionist approaches

Qualitative

• Socio-economic context

• Institutional/political processes

• Practices behind decision-making

• Quality

• Subjective experiences

• Exploratory

• Particular

• Outliers – interesting – follow up!

• Values - explicit

• Conceptualisation the starting point

• Daily life, here and now

• Focus on collective experiences

• Policy suggestions complex, unintended consequences

Towards an integrated approach

• Enables political economic analysis linking context to magnitude of phenomena

• Reveals practices and process behind trends• How and why households respond• Enhanced understanding of factors behind statistics• Balanced explanations of people’s actions –

interdependency of family members• A more nuanced view• Illustrative• QLR – understanding change over time in depth• Clarification of how questions are understood in context• Grounded, realistic (?) policy suggestions.

Example 1: child labour

• Economics: child labour prevents human capital formation (via schooling); poverty/poor parents force children to work

• Sociology: children’s responsibilities, interdependency, reciprocity

• Quality of school • What is lost when children withdrawn from work?• survival, earning money, enhancing marriage

prospects, having something to do, a source of pride, having fun with friends, and a way of learning skills for the future.

Integration:

• Economists emphasis on ‘non-cognitive’ skills (....self-discipline, perseverance, dependability, motivation, sociability, ability to work with others, ability to focus on tasks, self-regulation, self-esteem, time preference, health, mental health... ‘character’) cf:

• Cultural psychology/social anthropology – all these characteristics are valued very differently across cultures, genders, social groups etc...... (eg. Pride, shyness, etc)

• Start with the topic and question, not the discipline... (social policy approach)

Example 2: injuries among young people

• From qualitative research, extent and effects of injuries

• Prevalence in survey of injuries• Lack of evidence/data (epidemiological –

hospital admissions)• Primary focus on sexual and reproductive health• Explore patterns, socio-demographic risk

factors, and consequences of injuries• Mixed methods paper

Approach: integration

• Iterative – initial analysis of both data sets separately

• Key areas identified where young people reported injury (work/doing chores, recreation and sports, transport)

• 2-way process where survey and qualitative analysis informed each other

To acquire understanding of socio-demographic risk factors and potential long-term health consequences

Findings

• Survey: Work injuries: slightly more frequent in Ethiopia and AP India than Peru and Vietnam

• Cuts, ‘falls’, animal-related, transport-related• In Ethiopia and AP India, gender – boys higher

odds of work injuries than girls. • Poverty/rurality – in Ethiopia, Peru and Vietnam• Qualitative: consequences of injuries – social

and economic, for individual and entire family. • Eg Ethiopia, Habtamu age 13 in 2009: cut his

leg with an axe, chopping wood.

Habtamu

• ‘First, my parents put chilli and alcohol on the sore... I was treated in this way for one month. However, I was seriously sick, and I was taken to the modern health centre. I had one medicine by injection and another medicine which was take in the form of fluid.... Then I was able to recover from the injury’.

• Habtamu’s brother took on his work, • Habtamu’father paid for hospital treatment.• Implications: financial burden, and his brother’s

time at school

Other examples & implications:

• Recreation and sports injuries – lack of safe spaces, risky activities, playing football on roads, kite flying on roofs.

• Transport injuries - motorbikes, bicycles – overcrowding, poor road quality, fear of falling, public transport.

• Explaining injuries: the importance of spiritual forces• (Limitations, and further research needed)• Health care inaccessible, lay remedies • Adapt injury prevention approaches to differing

environments/understandings

Conclusions….

• Combining methods and models of childhood will enable deeper understanding

• Binary division too simplistic• Many examples of integrated approaches, and

of combining or mixing methods• Need transparency about process of integration• Barriers: paradigm wars, publishing conventions• Workshops on combining qual/quant• Impact agenda?

REFERENCESBoyden J and M Bourdillon (eds) (2012) Childhood poverty, multidisciplinary approaches. Palgrave/Macmillan, London.

Boyden, J and M Bourdillon (eds) (2014) Growing up in Poverty: Findings from Young Lives, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Crivello, G., Morrow, V., Wilson, E. (2013) Young Lives Longitudinal Qualitative Research: a guide for researchers. Young Lives Technical Note 26, Young Lives, Oxford. www.younglives.org.uk

Heissler K & Porter C. (2013) Know your place: Ethiopian children’s contributions to the household economy. European Journal of Development Research, 25, 4, 600-620.

Morrow, V., Barnett, I, and Vujcich, D. (2014) Understanding the causes and consequences of injuries to adolescents growing up in poverty in Ethiopia, Andhra Pradesh (India), Vietnam and Peru: a mixed method study, Health Policy and Planning, 29, 1, 67-75.

Morrow , V., and Crivello, G. (in preparation, 2015) What is the value of qualitative longitudinal research with children and young people for international development? For (eds) R. Thomson & J. MacLeod, ‘New Frontiers in Qualitative Longitudinal Research’, Special issue of Int Jnl Social Research Methodology

Orkin, K. (2011) See first, think later, then test: How children’s perspectives can improve economic research. European Journal of Development Research, 23, 5, 774-791.

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