Jo Boyden, Director of Young Lives

Professor Jo Boyden is Director of the innovative Young Lives study based at the University’s Department of International Development. She is a pioneer in the emerging field of global childhood studies and is breaking new ground in theorisation, conceptualisation, analysis and methods for researching childhood poverty and influencing policy.

At Young Lives she leads a multi-disciplinary team, including national researchers and policy specialists in four developing countries, to investigate the causes and consequences of childhood poverty and how policymakers can best reduce it. The 15-year study integrates findings from a detailed survey of 12,000 children and their carers conducted every three years, interviews with a smaller group of children, and policy and budget monitoring.

Before being appointed Director of Young Lives, Jo Boyden had built an international reputation for her research on children in adversity, including war-affected children, street children and children involved in hazardous work. Her studies have shown how research and development practice often trivialises children by emphasising their dependence on adults and minimising their contributions to society. Her work today focuses on the roles, responsibilities and the risks faced by children living in poverty and their resilience and resourcefulness in difficult situations.

Professor Boyden has been a research associate with the Refugee Studies Centre and senior researcher at Queen Elizabeth House since 1989 and also brings to Young Lives more than two decades of specialised work as a social development consultant with international and national child development agencies such as Oxfam, Save the Children and UNICEF in Africa, South and South-East Asia and Latin America. She is motivated by a passionate commitment to raising the profile of children, both in national poverty debates and within international development agencies. A programme as complex as Young Lives involves much careful work to ensure its research is rigorous, all data is accurate, and that analysis and policy recommendations are realistic and based firmly on the evidence.