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This paper presents an analysis of the role of parental aspirations in determining private school choice in Andhra Pradesh, using quantitative and qualitative data from the Young Lives cohort study over two rounds. Aspirations are measured using a range of indicators of what educational attainment level and future occupational status parents desire for their children. We find robustly, across all measures of aspirations and different empirical specifications, that parental aspirations have a significant positive impact on the probability that the child is enrolled in a private school. This finding is further supported by qualitative evidence that also suggests that higher parental aspirations for the future situation of their child will lead to higher investment in education because parents perceive education as key to future success. Thus, our findings suggest that parental aspirations are among the demand factors that may explain the recent dramatic increase in private school enrolment in Andhra Pradesh among the poorest groups. This is mainly because parents believe that private schools can provide a better future for their children, which motivates them to make the necessary investment.

Livelihood diversification is the process by which households maintain diverse activities and assets in order to survive and to improve their standard of living. To ensure effective interventions to reduce rural poverty and vulnerability to poverty, it is important to understand household diversification strategies and the extent to which such strategies are feasible. In Andhra Pradesh, this topic is of particular relevance given the recent agricultural crisis in the state, resulting in the suicides of hundreds of farmers. After years of relative neglect under the previous state government, the current government of Andhra Pradesh is focusing on improving the agricultural sector and reformulating policies to better address the needs of farmers. Agriculture remains the main activity in rural Andhra Pradesh, particularly among poor households. Using Young Lives data from 20 sites across Andhra Pradesh, this paper presents an analysis of household diversification patterns and examines the links between household assets and livelihood diversification. The findings here demonstrate that, in order to help households move out of poverty, greater opportunities to engage in non-farming activities are needed. The authors discuss the links between poverty and education, asset ownership, and access to land and infrastructure, and outline conclusions and implications for policy. These findings underscore the urgency of the agricultural crisis in Andhra Pradesh, and the need to find a holistic solution to tackle the decline of this sector of the state economy.

In this paper we explore the effect that a recent drought in Andhra Pradesh, India, has had on the school and work patterns of children aged 11 to 12 years. Previous empirical studies have investigated the effect of shocks on outcomes for children but few have allowed for heterogeneous treatment effects across children. Ignoring such heterogeneity might lead to biases in the estimated impact of the shocks. The aim of this paper is to address this lacuna. Using data from Young Lives, a longitudinal cohort study of children, we estimate the average impact of the drought on participation in schooling. We then expand our empirical model to allow for heterogeneous effects across children of different demographic categories – namely gender and birth order. Our analysis shows that ignoring child heterogeneity would underestimate the severity of the effect of the drought on children’s welfare and human capital accumulation. In particular, we find that the drought significantly reduced the time spent on schooling by most demographic groups. The exception is the group most likely to have been involved in agricultural work when there is no drought; the schooling participation of eldest sons appears to increase because of the drought. Furthermore, we trace the impact of the drought on child labour and cognitive development, while we rule out the possibility that the uncovered heterogeneous patterns might be driven by social norms or cultural biases in favour of eldest sons.

This report provides a brief literature review of general poverty (both income and non-income) and childhood poverty in India and the state of Andhra Pradesh. It also reviews national policies which have an impact on childhood poverty. The authors identify key national audiences for the Young Lives study, describe the study methods and present preliminary, descriptive results of the first round of Young Lives research. Existing data on poverty in India and Andhra Pradesh highlights the regional disparities in economic and social development, particularly between states and between rural and urban areas. Child nutrition and health indicators present a disheartening picture, with 47 per cent of Indian children (aged 0-3 years) underweight and 38 per cent underweight in Andhra Pradesh. Andhra Pradesh ranks low in terms of child education and literacy compared with the national average. Andhra Pradesh also has the highest number of child labourers in India, while India as a whole has the highest number in the world. Studies have also shown that most rural children’s intellectual development between six and twelve years of age is below average or average. A review of policy reveals that Andhra Pradesh has comprehensive policies and programmes to address various aspects of deprivation faced by poor children. These programmes need fine tuning, however, to effect lasting changes for the worst affected groups. Research from Young Lives provides important evidence and information on a multi-dimensional conceptualisation of childhood poverty. Using evidence from Andhra Pradesh, it takes the debate beyond the realm of child labour and into that of child well-being. The authors here discuss key findings from the first round of Young Lives data collection in Andhra Pradesh, and present provisional conclusions on questions of nutrition, health, education, literacy, child labour, the environment, and access to basic household services and goods.

India has made remarkable progress over the past 50 years in improving rates of adult literacy and school enrolment for boys and girls. However, there are concerns about drop-out rates and the quality of education, especially in government schools. It is important to appreciate that children learn both within and outside the classroom. There is a need to understand the extent to which basic numeracy and literacy skills are influenced by the home environment. If parents and communities are to play a role in compensating for the low quality of public schooling, it is important to consider how policies can support them to do so. The state of Andhra Pradesh has made considerable economic progress but lags in terms of social indicators such as schooling and literacy of females. The authors use data from the Young Lives study to explore patterns of learning outcomes among eight-year old children in Andhra Pradesh. This paper aims to explore the issues related to child learning in state and private schools and the influence of parental education levels and other household factors. Key findings are that children in private schools have better literacy and numeracy skills, regardless of wealth or caste, than children in government schools. Children with uneducated parents (especially mothers) are at a disadvantage, particularly if they attend government schools. Girls have lower learning scores than boys. There is a clear interplay between home and school. The effect of the caregiver’s education on child learning is greater for those attending state schools. These results reinforce previous findings about the role of parental factors, and indicate the kind of reforms that are necessary to improve education quality.

International audience; Demand for vulnerability assessments is growing in policy-making circles, to support the choice of appropriate measures and policies to reduce the vulnerability of water users and resources. Through the SHIVA ANR project, we are seeking a method to assess and map the vulnerability of farmers in southern India to both climate and socioeconomic changes, and secondly, to assess the costs and benefits associated with trends in farmers’ vulnerability in the medium and long term. The project is focusing on southern India’s hard rock area, as in this geological context, both surface and ground water resources are naturally limited. We are also focusing on farming populations as these are the main water users in the area and rely exclusively on groundwater. The area covers southern India’s semi-arid zone, where the rainfall gradient ranges from 600 mm to 1100 mm. Vulnerability is expected to vary according to local climatic conditions but also the socioeconomic characteristics of farming households. The SHIVA research team has been divided into six thematic groups in order to address the different scientific issues: downscaling the regional climate scenario, farm area projections, vulnerability assessments and quantification, vulnerability mapping, hydrological modelling and upscaling, and vulnerability impact assessments. Our approach is multidisciplinary to cater for the numerous inherent themes, and integrated to cater for vulnerability as a dynamic and multidimensional concept. The project’s first results after 10 months of research are presented below.

International audience; Demand for vulnerability assessments is growing in policy-making circles, to support the choice of appropriate measures and policies to reduce the vulnerability of water users and resources. Through the SHIVA ANR project, we are seeking a method to assess and map the vulnerability of farmers in southern India to both climate and socioeconomic changes, and secondly, to assess the costs and benefits associated with trends farmers' vulnerability in the medium and long-term. The project is focusing on southern India 's hard rock area, as in the geological context, both surface and ground water resources are naturally limited. We are also focusing on farming populations as these are the main water users in the area and rely exclusively on groundwater. The area covers southern India's semi-arid zone, where the rainfall gradient ranges from 600 mm to 1100 mm. Vulnerability is expected to vary according to local climatic conditions but also the socioeconomic characteristics of farming households. The SHIVA research team has been divided into six thematic groups in order to address the different scientific issues : downscaling the regional climate scenario, farm area projections, vulnerability assessments and quantification, vulnerability mapping, hydrological modelling and upscaling, and vulnerability impact assessements. Our approach is multidisciplinary to cater for for numerous inherent themes, and integrated to cater for vulnerability as a dynamic and multidimensional concept. The project 's first results after 10 months of research are presented below.

International audience; The SHIVA-ANR project aims at assessing the vulnerability of rural water users under stressors of global changes in the hard rocks area of South India. Determining present and future vulnerability of farmers to global changes calls for the creation of a context specific vulnerability index. A method is tested in small watershed of Gajwell (Andhra Pradesh).

This report presents initial findings from the second round of quantitative data collection which was carried out in Andhra Pradesh in late 2006 to early 2007. It aims to give a broad outline of the some of the key indicators of childhood poverty and changes that have taken place in the children’s lives between the first round of data collection in 2002 and this second round. Data are mainly presented for the entire age group cohort, in most cases separated into wealth groups or by rural/urban location. The data reflect the growth and poverty reduction witnessed in recent years. Also, there is evidence that the Young Lives households have become better off over the four years of the survey. However, inequalities in wealth and consumption expenditure between castes and ethnic groups, and the incidence of poverty between urban and rural areas, and between different regions of AP, are reflected in the Young Lives sample. These disparities fell slightly between the two rounds but remained prominent in 2006. Parental education, caste and household size were important determinants of poverty. Households afflicted by drought before Round 1 data collection were also more likely to be worse off by the time of Round 2 data collection. The full richness of the data is not reflected in this report, but it contains enough information to prompt other researchers, policymakers and other stakeholders to start to engage with the data.

Vulnerability assessment is in growing demand in policy circles in order to choose adapted measures and policies to reduce vulnerability of water users and resources. Within the SHIVA ANR project, we present a method to first assess and map the vulnerability of South-Indian farmers to both climate and socioeconomic changes, and second assess the costs and benefits associated with farmers' vulnerability evolution at two time scales (medium and long term). The project is focusing on hard rocks area of South-India as in this geological context, both surface and ground water resources are naturally limited. We also target farmers' population as they are the main water users of the area and they rely exclusively on groundwater. By the end, the area covers the semi-arid zone of South-India, with a rainfall gradient from 1100 mm to 600 mm. Vulnerability is then expected to vary according to this local climatic conditions but also to socioeconomic characteristics of farmers' households. After a 10 months research, we present the first results of the project.