Troubling transitions? Young people's experiences of growing up in poverty in rural Andhra Pradesh, India

Abstract

Global policy attention has begun to focus on young people in developing countries and much of the discourse is framed around notions of ‘transition to adulthood’ based on the idea that individuals develop in linear ways, separate from family and community. This idea has already been widely critiqued in western contexts. This article explores the lives of children growing up in rural Andhra Pradesh, India, who are no longer in formal schooling, drawing on data from Young Lives, a longitudinal study of children in four developing countries. Analysis combines descriptive statistics and qualitative longitudinal research. This article suggests that many of the assumptions underpinning the international discourse fail to match with the realities of young people's everyday lives in rural India. It suggests that young people's obligations to family, combined with a sense of destiny, constrained by gender norms, help to explain their ‘transitions’ – transitions that are interconnected and depend on each other. This article concurs that the concept of transition may be useful as a heuristic device, but that it must be used critically and not simply be imposed on contexts that are themselves in transition and in process of rapid social change.

Keywords:

• transition
• rural youth
• agricultural work
• Andhra Pradesh
• India

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Young Lives children, families and other community members, and the Qualitative research team at Sri Padmavathi Mahila Visvavidyalayam, Tirupati; Patricia Espinoza for research assistance, and Jo Boyden, Gina Crivello, Paul Dornan, Kirrily Pells, Renu Singh, Uma Vennam and Emma Wilson, as well as two anonymous referees who provided comments on earlier drafts. A version of this paper was presented at an ESRC-funded seminar: Exploring Children's Relationships across Majority and Minority Worlds, Youth transitions to adulthood, April 2011. Young Lives is funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID). The views expressed here are solely those of the author.

Notes

1. The sample is divided into quintiles (groups of equal size) according to their per capita household expenditure, where the lowest quintile (bottom 20%) of families are considered to be the ‘poorest’ and those in the highest quintile (top 20%) the ‘least poor’. Household expenditure is considered the most appropriate poverty indicator. It is calculated as the sum of the estimated value (approximated to the past month), of food (bought + home grown + gifts/transfers) and non-food (excluding durables such as furniture, gold jewellery and one-off expenditures). This monthly figure is then divided by household size.

2. Survey data are publically archived and available via www.esds.ac.uk

3. Scheduled Castes (SCs) are the lowest in the traditional caste structure and were earlier considered to be ‘untouchables’/dalit. SCs have been subjected to discrimination for years and had no access to basic services, including education. Backward Castes or Classes (BCs) are people belonging to a group of castes who are considered to be ‘backward’ in view of the low level in the caste structure. Scheduled Tribes are indigenous communities, who are traditionally disadvantaged and live in forests and mountainous areas.

4. All names of people and places are pseudonyms.

5. Rangoli are patterns made with powder every morning in front of the house. Being able to do rangoli is an assessment of a girl's ability to undertake household work.