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

1
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
Catherines College, Oxford 10th July 2014
2
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

3
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
• Childrens time use
• Child health and well-being
• Anthropometry
• Education experiences
• Caregiver perceptions
• Cognitive development vocabulary scores
• (Survey data are available at UK Data Archive)

4
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 childrens daily lives time-use,
  school, work, transitions, aspirations,
  experiences, well-being.

5
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.

6
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

7
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 peoples 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.

8
Example 1 child labour

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

9
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)

10
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

11
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

12
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.

13
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.
• Habtamus brother took on his work,
• Habtamufather paid for hospital treatment.
• Implications financial burden, and his brothers
  time at school

14
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

15
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?

16
REFERENCES
Boyden 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 childrens
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
childrens perspectives can improve economic
research. European Journal of Development
Research, 23, 5, 774-791.
17
FINDING OUT MORE

• www.younglives.org.uk
• methods and research papers
• datasets (UK data archive)
• publications
• child profiles and photos
• e-newsletter