growing up GLOBAL
THE CHANGING TRANSITIONS TO ADULTHOOD IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
Cynthia B. Lloyd, Editor
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
Washington, D.C.
www.nap.edu
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NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.
This study was supported by a cooperative agreement between the National Academy of Sciences and the United States Agency for International Development (CCP-3078-A-00-5024) and from grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and The World Bank. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizations or agencies that provided support for the project.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
National Research Council (U.S.). Panel on Transitions to Adulthood in Developing Countries.
Growing up global : the changing transitions to adulthood in developing countries / Panel on Transitions to Adulthood in Developing Countries ; Cynthia B. Lloyd, editor ; Committee on Population [and] Board on Children, Youth, and Families, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-309-09528-X (pbk.)—ISBN 0-309-54739-3 (pdf) 1. Young adults—Developing countries. 2. Youth—Developing countries. 3. Adulthood—Developing countries. 4. School-to-work transition—Developing countries. I. Lloyd, Cynthia B., 1943- II. National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Population. III. National Research Council (U.S.). Board on Children, Youth, and Families. IV. Title.
HQ799.8.D45N37 2005
305.242′09172′4—dc22
2005002187
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Suggested citation: National Research Council and Institute of Medicine (2005). Growing Up Global: The Changing Transitions to Adulthood in Developing Countries. Panel on Transitions to Adulthood in Developing Countries. Cynthia B. Lloyd, ed. Committee on Population and Board on Children, Youth, and Families. Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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PANEL ON TRANSITIONS TO ADULTHOOD IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
CYNTHIA B. LLOYD (Chair),
Policy Research Division, Population Council, New York
CARLOS E. ARAMBURÚ,
Consorcio de Investigación Económica y Social, Lima, Peru
NAN MARIE ASTONE,
Department of Population and Family Health Sciences, Johns Hopkins University
KAUSHIK BASU,
Department of Economics, Cornell University
JERE R. BEHRMAN,
Department of Economics and Population Studies Center, University of Pennsylvania
ANASTASIA J. GAGE,
Department of International Health and Development, Tulane University
SHIREEN J. JEJEEBHOY,
Population Council, New Delhi, India
RICHARD JESSOR,
Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado, Boulder
BARTHÉLÉMY KUATE-DEFO,
Department of Demography, University of Montreal
DAVID A. LAM,
Department of Economics and Population Studies Center, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
ROBERT J. MAGNANI,
Family Health International, Arlington, VA
BARBARA S. MENSCH,
Policy Research Division, Population Council, New York
SUSHEELA SINGH,
The Alan Guttmacher Institute, New York
NELLY P. STROMQUIST,
School of Education, University of Southern California
Liaison to Committee on Adolescent Health and Development
ROBERT BLUM,
Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University
National Research Council Staff
VALERIE DURRANT, Study Director*
RANDY BULATAO, Senior Program Officer
BARNEY COHEN, Director, Committee on Population
CHRISTINE COVINGTON-CHEN, Senior Program Assistant
COMMITTEE ON POPULATION
KENNETH W. WACHTER (Chair),
Department of Demography, University of California, Berkeley
ELLEN BRENNAN-GALVIN,
School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University
JANET CURRIE,
Department of Economics, University of California, Los Angeles
JOHN N. HOBCRAFT,
Department of Social Policy, London School of Economics
CHARLES B. KEELY,
Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
DAVID I. KERTZER,
Department of Anthropology, Brown University
DAVID A. LAM,
Department of Economics and Population Studies Center, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
CYNTHIA B. LLOYD,
Policy Research Division, Population Council, New York
DOUGLAS S. MASSEY,
Sociology and Public Affairs, Princeton University
RUBÉN G. RUMBAUT,
Department of Sociology, University of California, Irvine
JAMES W. VAUPEL,
Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany
LINDA J. WAITE,
Department of Sociology, University of Chicago
ROBERT J. WILLIS,
Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
BARNEY COHEN, Director
BOARD ON CHILDREN, YOUTH, AND FAMILIES
MICHAEL I. COHEN (Chair),
Department of Pediatrics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine
JAMES A. BANKS,
Center for Multicultural Education, University of Washington, Seattle
THOMAS DEWITT,
Children’s Hospital Medical Center of Cincinnati
MARY JANE ENGLAND,
Regis College, Weston, MA
BRENDA ESKENAZI,
School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley
PATRICIA GREENFIELD,
Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles
NEAL HALFON,
School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles
MAXINE HAYES,
Washington State Department of Health
MARGARET C. HEAGARTY,
College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University
HARRIET KITZMAN,
School of Nursing, University of Rochester
CINDY LEDERMAN,
Juvenile Justice Center, Miami, FL
ELENA NIGHTINGALE,
Institute of Medicine, The National Academies
GARY D. SANDEFUR,
College of Letters and Science, University of Wisconsin, Madison
RUTH STEIN,
Department of Pediatrics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine
ELLEN WARTELLA,
University of California, Riverside
ROSEMARY A. CHALK, Director
Liaison to Committee on Adolescent Health and Development
ROBERT BLUM,
Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University
Preface
As chair of the Panel on Transitions to Adulthood in Developing Countries, I would like to say on behalf of the panel that we have been privileged and challenged by our task of examining the changing lives of young people in developing countries at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Growing Up Global: The Changing Transitions to Adulthood in Developing Countries is the product of a three-year effort during which time the panel reviewed many different literatures and conducted much new data analysis.
Throughout the project, the panel was committed to focusing on the links and interconnections between the productive and reproductive domains of young peoples’ lives that have typically been treated in isolation from each other. It is our hope that this approach will inspire a next generation of researchers and policy makers to see the different aspects of young peoples’ lives in a more interconnected way, allowing new insights for policies and programs.
This report would not have been possible without the help of numerous people and organizations. First, we wish to thank the report’s sponsors: the U.S. Agency for International Development, the David and Lucille Packard Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the World Bank, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
This report reflects the intense deliberations of the panel (see Appendix C for biographical sketches) who met multiple times over the course of the project. At an early stage of the project, I formed working groups to take up certain cross-cutting topics in support of the panel’s work. These met either in person or by conference call and built on the expertise of various panel
members. With the formation of these groups, panel members were able to get fully engaged in the work of the panel in order to ensure their collective input at an early stage of the project. The first group, the theory group, held two meetings, one hosted by Richard Jessor at the University of Colorado. This group included Kuate Defo, Nan Astone, Nelly Stromquist, Richard Jessor, Jere Behrman, Anastasia Gage, Kaushik Basu, Cynthia Lloyd, and Valerie Durrant. A data group was formed to assess the availability of census and survey data from two recent points in time to undertake analyses of the interrelationships between various role transitions. The data group included David Lam, Jere Behrman, Susheela Singh, Cynthia Lloyd, and Valerie Durrant. A program evaluation group was formed to set standards of evidence for the evaluation of programs; this group included Robert Magnani, Robert Blum, Jere Behrman, Carlos Aramburú, Nelly Stromquist, Kuate Defo, Cynthia Lloyd, and Valerie Durrant. Finally, a reproductive health working group consisted of Barbara Mensch, Anastasia Gage, Robert Blum, Carlos Aramburú, Shireen Jejeebhoy, Susheela Singh, Valerie Durrant, and Cynthia Lloyd.
The panel also commissioned papers by panel members and other experts to provide background information on which the panel report could build. These papers helped fill some of the knowledge gaps and thus provided useful analyses, all of which are cited and some of which are incorporated into the panel report. But a number of these background studies, in addition to providing inputs for the panel report, constitute useful contributions to the knowledge of transitions to adulthood in developing countries that are richer and broader than what is incorporated into the report itself. The panel therefore established an editorial committee for these papers composed of Jere Behrman, Barney Cohen, Cynthia Lloyd, and Nelly Stromquist. They took responsibility for reviewing the papers directly and oversaw a process of external review and revision according to National Research Council (NRC) procedures. The table of contents for this edited volume titled, The Changing Transitions to Adulthood in Developing Countries: Selected Studies (editors, Cynthia B. Lloyd, Jere R. Behrman, Nelly P. Stromquist, and Barney Cohen) appears in Appendix B of this report.
After five meetings of the full panel, I appointed an editorial committee, with the support of the full panel, to carry forward the preparation of draft chapters on behalf of the panel, and this group of panel members spent significant time in the last year of the project attending two additional meetings and sharing the responsibility for the final preparation of the manuscript. Members of the editorial committee were: Nelly Stromquist, Nan Astone, Jere Behrman, David Lam, Barbara Mensch, Richard Jessor, and Cynthia Lloyd. I then took primary responsibility, with the support of Barney Cohen, for the final revision and editing of the manuscript in preparation for review.
Consequently, this report is truly the collective product of panel members and staff. Its content reflects the deliberations of the full panel who reviewed and revised all contributions. The purpose of the following list, therefore, is to give credit to individuals but not to assign final responsibility for the published text.
Executive Summary: This is the collective product of the deliberations of the entire panel
Chapter 1: C. Lloyd and R. Jessor
Chapter 2: B. Cohen, R. Jessor, H. Reed, C. Lloyd, J. Behrman, and D. Lam
Chapter 3: C. Lloyd, D. Lam, J. Behrman, and N. Stromquist
Chapter 4: A. Blanc, R. Magnani, S. Singh, S. Jejeebhoy, and R. Bulatao
Chapter 5: C. Lloyd, D. Lam, and J. Behrman
Chapter 6: M. Grant, N. Varia, V. Durrant, and N. Stromquist
Chapter 7: B. Mensch
Chapter 8: C. Lloyd, S. Singh, N. Astone, B. Mensch, and S. Jejeebhoy
Chapter 9: C. Lloyd
Appendix A: C. Lloyd and V. Durrant
It should be noted that the authors listed for each chapter include those who took up major writing responsibilities at various stages of each chapter’s preparation. The first author listed is the person who took the major responsibility for putting the chapter into final shape for review. These chapters occasionally contain additional paragraphs from other hands.
I want to single out for special mention the panel members who served as members of the editorial committee because of their continuing involvement in the work of the panel report from beginning to end as well as in the preparation of the accompanying volume of papers. Their involvement went well beyond what could be fully reflected in the chapter authorship list above. As chair, I want to thank each of them individually for their contributions as well as for their strong support and steady partnership throughout the volume.
Richard Jessor served as the panel’s theoretician and conscience. He challenged us to develop a conceptual framework that would outlive the temporal nature of our material, provided all of us with lots of good humor along the way, and provided me most importantly with a helpful sounding board throughout the project. He also collaborated on the drafting of Chapters 1 and 2.
Jere Behrman was a constructive partner and critic at each stage of the drafting of two of the longest and most challenging chapters—3 and 5. In
addition, he wrote several commissioned papers in order to strengthen the panel’s treatment of policy and program evaluation throughout the volume as well as of issues of global convergence and divergence covered in Chapter 2. He also served as a coeditor of the volume of papers.
Nelly Stromquist brought a critical perspective to our work from an intellectual tradition that lay outside the tradition common to many panel members. She provided patient, persistent, and constructive input to the work of the panel throughout the life of the project. This included collaborating on the drafting of Chapters 3 and 6 and serving as coeditor of the volume of papers.
David Lam was a strong supporter of the project from its inception as a member of the NRC’s Committee on Population and undertook substantial new data analysis with census and survey data to explore the interrelationships between various transitions to adulthood. He also collaborated on the drafting of Chapters 3 and 5.
Nan Astone brought her experience and expertise in the study of adolescents in the United States to our panel discussions, thus helping to shape our conceptual approach and our comparative perspective. She also played a major role in the drafting of Chapter 8 on parenthood.
Barbara Mensch, who works next door to me at the Population Council, not only became the sole author of Chapter 7 on marriage but also provided me with a steady dose of solidarity, comradeship, and advice throughout the project.
Several other individuals made key contributions that deserve special mention. Susheela Singh, Shireen Jejeebhoy, and Robert Magnani, members of the panel but not members of the editorial committee, took up drafting roles for Chapters 4 and 8. Amanda Ritchie, as a consultant to NRC, was our resident anthropologist. She wrote all of the boxes in Chapters 4, 7, and 8 and some others scattered throughout the volume, took the lead on the comparative analysis of time use data that is featured in Chapter 5, and undertook substantial background research for Chapter 4. Monica Grant, research coordinator in the Policy Research Division of the Population Council, in addition to being a lead author on Chapter 6, was responsible for most of the data analysis for Chapters 4, 7, and 8. Her speed and agility at programming 50 data sets simultaneously was truly extraordinary and was also complemented by her good understanding of the material and her many good ideas about how to handle the data. Barbara Miller, my staff assistant at the Population Council, has been my right hand throughout the project. She set up the original files to handle all the weighted regional averages for the analysis of Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) data and undertook endless revisions and updates with good cheer. She was also responsible for handling all the references for Chapters 3, 5, 7, and 8. Paul Hewett, my collaborator on the paper on primary schooling in
Africa, took responsibility for the original data analysis for Chapter 3 and provided technical support and advice throughout the project. Holly Reed at the NRC prepared a preliminary draft of Chapter 2 as did Jonathan Zaff, a consultant, for Chapter 5. Ann Blanc and Randy Bulatao served as consultants for Chapter 3 and Nisha Varia for Chapter 6. Richard Anker provided advice on Chapter 5 at an informal meeting of interested panel members scheduled when he was on this side of the Atlantic, and Ron Kassimir of the Social Science Research Council and Martin Riesebrodt of the University of Chicago provided valuable advice and literature reviews on religion that served as background material for Chapter 2. Others who assisted in the analysis of data or who provided us with access to data include Sara Zellner, Suhaila Khan, Erin Murphy-Graham, Georgeann Higgins, Rubina Hussain, Christine Schippers, Claudia Stilman, Djavad Salehi, Matthew Sobek, Anil Deolalikar, Jed Friedman, and Lupin Rahman.
Several experts participated in a planning meeting in January 2001 to help formulate a plan for the panel’s contributions. We acknowledge the collective contribution of the following members of the planning group who are not members of the panel: Richard Anker, Julie DaVanzo, Bessie Lee, Marlaine Lockheed, Anju Malhotra, Karen Mason, Susan Newcomer, Agnes Quisumbing, and Peter Xenos.
The panel was fortunate to hold one of its meetings in Mexico City, which was hosted by Consejo Nacional de Población (CONAPO) in February 2002, and would like to thank Rodolfo Turian, Elena Zuniga, and Cristina Gil Villegas for their help in making the meeting possible. During the visit, the panel received a special briefing on Programa de Educación, Salud y Alimentación (PROGRESA) from Santiago Levy and heard presentations from several researchers at the Colegio de Mexico—Claudia Stern, Rosa Maria Camareno, and Carlos Echarri—who had undertaken research on transitions to adulthood among Mexican adolescents. The panel also met with youth from Gente Joven and Balance, a young women’s network in Mexico City promoting citizenship rights and political participation. Virginia Rodriquez coordinated the visit to Gente Joven. Staff from Balance included Maria Antonieta Alcalde Castro, Esteban Inzua, Belén Gutierrez, Nancy Olguin, and Mariana Pérez Ramirex.
The panel also cosponsored an expert meeting with the World Bank on Assessing the Economic Benefits of Investments in Youth in collaboration with Elizabeth Lule and Jim Rosen. Papers were presented by Jere Behrman, Jim Knowles, Wendy Cummingham, Paolo Belli, and Olivier Appaix. Others who attended the meeting and provided valuable discussion include: Robert Holzmann, Jane Ross, Maureen Lewis, Mayra Buvinic, Jacques van der Gaag, Alex Preker, Nancy Williamson, Christine Norton, Matilde Maddaleno, Laura Laski, and Aleksandra Posarac.
Many other colleagues supplied the panel with research in the form of
background papers. The panel benefited greatly from these papers and thanks the following individuals for their contribution: Patrick Emerson, André Portela Souza, Shireen Jejeebhoy, Shiva Halli, Agnes Quisumbing, Kelly Hallman, Emily Hannum, Jihong Liu, Piyali Sengupta, Jere Behrman, Jim Knowles, David Lam, Leticia Marteleto, Sajeda Amin, Cynthia Lloyd, Paul Hewett, Monica Grant, Barbara Mensch, Susheela Singh, John Casterline, Peter Xenos, Sulistinah Achmad, Hui Sheng Lin, Ping Keung Luis, Chai Podhisita, Corazon Raymundo, Shyam Thapa, Nan Astone, Ken Hill, Margaret Wedon, Barthelemy Kuate Defo, Robert Blum, and Kristin Nelson-Mmari.
No project of this magnitude could be undertaken without able staff. Valerie Durrant was staff director for our panel at the NRC from the panel’s inception in early 2001 until September 2003, initially as a fellow of the University of Michigan Population Fellows Program and later as a regular NRC employee. She did an excellent job of coordinating the work of the panel, arranging meetings of the panel and its various working groups, arranging for literature reviews and data analyses, working closely with our sponsors, co-organizing the expert group meeting on Assessing the Economic Benefits of Investment in Youth (October 15, 2002) in collaboration with the World Bank, and most particularly supporting me in my role as chair. She also did some major background research for Chapter 3 and did some data analysis and rewrote parts of Chapter 6. Her enthusiasm for the subject was infectious and she had a full mastery of the panel’s scope. She was sorely missed after her departure, which came at the time the project had originally been scheduled for completion. Barney Cohen, director of the Committee on Population, oversaw the work and managed the final stages of the process, including the response to review. The panel owes a huge debt to both Valerie Durrant and Barney Cohen, and we are deeply grateful for their support throughout the project.
In addition, special thanks are due to Christine Covington-Chen for her superb administrative and logistic support, to Christine McShane for skillfully editing the manuscript, to Kirsten Sampson Snyder for navigating the report through review, to Anthony Mann for preparing the final manuscript, and Yvonne Wise for steering the manuscript through the production process.
This report has been reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance with procedures approved by the NRC’s Report Review Committee. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the institution in making its published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and
draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process. We thank the following individuals for their review of this report: Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, Journal of Adolescent Research, University Park, MD; Suzanne Duryea, Research Department, Inter-American Development Bank, Washington, DC; Constance A. Flanagan, Agricultural Sciences, Pennsylvania State University; Stephen F. Hamilton, Family Life Development Center, Cornell University; John Hobcraft, Department of Social Policy and Demography, University of York, United Kingdom; Reed Larson, Department of Human and Community, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL; Thomas LeGrand, Demography Department, University of Montreal, Canada; Anju Malhotra, Population and Social Transitions, International Center for Research on Women, Washington, DC.
Although the reviewers listed have provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions and recommendations nor did they see the final draft of the report before its release. The review of this report was overseen by Marshall S. Smith, Education Program, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Appointed by the NRC, he was responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with institutional procedures and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content of this report rests entirely with the authoring committee and the institution.
Finally, I owe a special debt of gratitude to the Population Council, where I work, which has stood behind me during the three years of the project and supported my time on the project. The Population Council has made a substantial commitment to research on transitions to adulthood over the past eight years, thanks to generous funding from the U.K. Department for International Development, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Spencer Foundation, among others. Many colleagues of mine at the Population Council have shared in this collective effort, and I owe them all a debt of gratitude. They include, but are by no means limited to, Sajeda Amin, Martha Brady, Judith Bruce, Judy Diers, Anabel Erulkar, Nicole Haberland, Kelly Hallman, Paul Hewett, Barbara Ibrahim, Shireen Jejeebhoy, Barbara Mensch, Mark Montgomery, Zeba Sathar, and Minhaj ul Haque. John Bongaarts, vice president of the Population Council in charge of the Policy Research Division, has also been an enthusiastic supporter and a patient listener through the project, and it is his support most of all that has allowed me the time and space to embark on this major undertaking and follow it through until its very end.
For me it has been an honor and a privilege to serve as chair of this
panel. I have met and become friends and colleagues with so many people I otherwise would not have known and have learned so much in the process. The product is truly a collective one, enriched and strengthened by the passions, ideas, knowledge, talents, and good humor of all my fellow panel members. To them all, I am most deeply grateful.
Cynthia B. Lloyd, Chair
Panel on Transitions to Adulthood in Developing Countries