Marta Favara
PhD in Economics - University of Essex
marta.favara@qeh.ox.ac.uk
Marta is a Senior Researcher at the Oxford Department of International Development at the University of Oxford where she is leading the quantitative research agenda of Young Lives since 2015. She is also a Research Fellow at the Oxford Martin School Programme on African Governance and an IZA Research Affiliate. Before joining Young Lives, she worked as an economist at the World Bank. She obtained a PhD in Economics from the University of Essex (UK) and a Masters in Economics from the University of Leuven (Belgium).
Her main research interests include development economics (poverty, inequality and early childhood development); labour economics (education and gender) and behavioural economics (choice under uncertainty, adolescent risk behaviours). Her recent work focuses on foundational skills formation and young people’s behaviour (transition to the labour market, fertility decision and schooling enrolment). In addition, she investigates the role of aspirations and subjective expectations as potential self-enforcing mechanisms underlying poverty and gender inequality.
Publications
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Young Lives Two Decades of Findings and Future Research Opportunities: Employment
2026 Marta Favara, Kath Ford, Alan Sanchez, Tanima Tanima
This report presents the key findings emerging from over 20 years of Young Lives’ quantitative and qualitative data and research on employment, with a strong focus on women’s economic empowerment. It also highlights Young Lives’ significant contribution to related policy debates, showcases impact case studies, presents the latest trends based on preliminary analysis of Round […]
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Young Lives Two Decades of Findings and Future Research Opportunities: Family Lives
2026 Marta Favara, Kath Ford, Joanna Mihaylova, Alan Sanchez, Tanima Tanima
This report presents key findings from over 20 years of Young Lives’ quantitative and qualitative data and research on experiences of family lives, and how gender inequalities have an impact on life outcomes for young people and their families. It also highlights the study’s significant contribution to related policy debates, showcases impact case studies, presents […]
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Young Lives Two Decades of Findings and Future Research Opportunities: Health and Well-being
2026 Marta Favara, Kath Ford, Julia Quigua Chinchilla, Alan Sanchez, Sophie von Russdorf
This report presents key findings from over 20 years of quantitative and qualitative research by Young Lives on nutrition, health and well-being, exploring how widening inequalities – exacerbated by shocks and crises – affect the resilience of vulnerable young people and threaten to reverse recent gains in health and well-being, with consequences extending to the […]
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Young Lives Two Decades of Findings and Future Research Opportunities: Education and Skills
2026 Marta Favara, Kath Ford, María de los Ángeles Molina, Alan Sanchez, Amanda Woodman Deza,
This report presents key findings from over 20 years of quantitative and qualitative research by Young Lives on schooling, cognitive skills, socio-emotional skills and the transition to higher education. It also highlights Young Lives’ significant contributions to education policy debates, showcases impact case studies, presents the latest trends in education and skills based on preliminary […]
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JournalSSM - Population Health
Factors Associated with Mental Health among Young Adults: Cross-Country Longitudinal Evidence from Ethiopia, India, and Peru
Marta Favara, Richard Freund, Juliana Quigua, Alan Sanchez
This study investigates contingent and longitudinal predictors of mental health in early adulthood, using unique, harmonized panel data from the Young Lives study in Ethiopia, India, and Peru, spanning over two decades across diverse settings. It accounts for factors and events occurring during the most significant developmental stages, from infancy through childhood and adolescence. It […]
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Young Lives Two Decades of Findings and Future Research Opportunities: Employment
2026 Marta Favara, Kath Ford, Alan Sanchez, Tanima Tanima
This report presents the key findings emerging from over 20 years of Young Lives’ quantitative and qualitative data and research on employment, with a strong focus on women’s economic empowerment. It also highlights Young Lives’ significant contribution to related policy debates, showcases impact case studies, presents the latest trends based on preliminary analysis of Round […]
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Young Lives Two Decades of Findings and Future Research Opportunities: Family Lives
2026 Marta Favara, Kath Ford, Joanna Mihaylova, Alan Sanchez, Tanima Tanima
This report presents key findings from over 20 years of Young Lives’ quantitative and qualitative data and research on experiences of family lives, and how gender inequalities have an impact on life outcomes for young people and their families. It also highlights the study’s significant contribution to related policy debates, showcases impact case studies, presents […]
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Young Lives Two Decades of Findings and Future Research Opportunities: Health and Well-being
2026 Marta Favara, Kath Ford, Julia Quigua Chinchilla, Alan Sanchez, Sophie von Russdorf
This report presents key findings from over 20 years of quantitative and qualitative research by Young Lives on nutrition, health and well-being, exploring how widening inequalities – exacerbated by shocks and crises – affect the resilience of vulnerable young people and threaten to reverse recent gains in health and well-being, with consequences extending to the […]
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Young Lives Two Decades of Findings and Future Research Opportunities: Education and Skills
2026 Marta Favara, Kath Ford, María de los Ángeles Molina, Alan Sanchez, Amanda Woodman Deza,
This report presents key findings from over 20 years of quantitative and qualitative research by Young Lives on schooling, cognitive skills, socio-emotional skills and the transition to higher education. It also highlights Young Lives’ significant contributions to education policy debates, showcases impact case studies, presents the latest trends in education and skills based on preliminary […]
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Life-Course Shocks and Food Insecurity: Longitudinal Evidence from Ethiopia, India, and Peru
2025 Marta Favara, Alan Sanchez, Juliana Quiua
This study investigates the relationship between life-cycle exposure to socioeconomic shocks and subsequent food insecurity in young adult households. Using two decades of longitudinal data (2002-2023) from the Young Lives study in Ethiopia, India, and Peru, we analyse how the timing of shocks influences current household food security. Our findings consistently demonstrate a significant association […]
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JournalSSM - Population Health
Factors Associated with Mental Health among Young Adults: Cross-Country Longitudinal Evidence from Ethiopia, India, and Peru
Marta Favara, Richard Freund, Juliana Quigua, Alan Sanchez
This study investigates contingent and longitudinal predictors of mental health in early adulthood, using unique, harmonized panel data from the Young Lives study in Ethiopia, India, and Peru, spanning over two decades across diverse settings. It accounts for factors and events occurring during the most significant developmental stages, from infancy through childhood and adolescence. It […]
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JournalJournal of Economic Psychology
When choice matters: The asymmetric effects of precommitment implementation on healthy food choice
2026 Marta Favara, Joanna Mihaylova, Alan Sanchez
This paper investigates the role of precommitment in making healthy food choices, using a lab-in-the-field experiment embedded in the Young Lives longitudinal study in Peru. Leveraging the fact that participants were scheduled for a blood test and would therefore require a snack afterwards, we elicited participants’ snack choice from a predefined set. Participants were asked […]
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JournalJournal of Human Resources
Human Capital Development New Evidence on the Production of Socio-Emotional Skills
2025 Mark Mitchell, Marta Favara, Catherine Porter, Alan Sanchez
We estimate a dynamic model of socio-emotional skill development between ages eight and 22 for a Peruvian cohort born in 1994. At age eight there is no wealth gradient, in contrast to cognitive skills. However, by age 12, inequalities emerge and widen through age 19, driven by differential household investments, and cross-productivity with cognitive skills. […]
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Unpacking the COVID-19 gender employment gap among young people in the global south
2025 Douglas Scott, Richard Freund, Marta Favara, Catherine Porter, Alan Sanchez
We provide new evidence on the employment gap between young men and women in three low- and middle-income countries during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. We estimate a year-end increase of 17–18 percentage points in Peru and India (Andhra Pradesh and Telangana), and 9.5 percentage points in Vietnam. A mediation approach is used […]
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JournalClinical Nutrition ESPEN
Interaction between genetic risk score and dietary carbohydrate intake on high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels: Findings from the study of obesity, nutrition, genes and social factors (SONGS)
2025 Ramatu Wuni, Katherine Curi-Quinto, Litai Liu, Dianela Espinoza, Anthony I. Aquino, Juana del Valle-Mendoza, Miguel Angel Aguilar-Luis, Claudia Murray, Richard Nunes, Lisa Methven, Julie A. Lovegrove, Mary Penny, Marta Favara, Alan Sanchez, Karani Santhanakrishnan Vimaleswaran
Cardiometabolic traits are complex interrelated traits that result from a combination of genetic and lifestyle factors. This study aimed to assess the interaction between genetic variants and dietary macronutrient intake on cardiometabolic traits [body mass index, waist circumference, total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triacylglycerol, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, fasting […]
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La transición hacia el mercado laboral y los estudios postsecundarios en Perú: evidencia del estudio Niños del Milenio
Millennials en América Latina y el Caribe: ¿trabajar o estudiar?2018 Marta Favara, Alan Sanchez
Unlike the previous chapters, the report on Peru draws on a unique source of information: the Young Lives study, which collected longitudinal data. For 15 years, this research followed two groups of adolescents and young people born in the years 1994-1995 and 2001-2002, respectively. Drawing on the information obtained, this chapter pursues two objectives. The […]
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Las habilidades cognitivas medidas durante la adolescencia predicen los resultados educativos: Evidencia de Etiopia y Perú
2023 Jennifer López, Jere R. Behrman, Santiago Cueto, Marta Favara, Alan Sanchez
Utilizando datos de Niños del Milenio (NdM), se investiga la asociación entre las habilidades cognitivas medidas a los 12 años y los resultados educativos medidos a los 15 y 20 años. Los y las jóvenes con mayores puntajes en memoria de largo plazo y memoria de trabajo mostraron mejores resultados en las pruebas de vocabulario, […]
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El impacto del COVID-19 sobre la salud mental de jóvenes en el Perú
2023 Alan Sanchez, Marta Favara, Kath Ford, Annina Hittmeyer, Catherine Porter, Richard Freund, Douglas Scott
Using data from the longitudinal Young Lives (NdM for its acronym in Spanish) study, this bulletin documents factors associated with symptoms of anxiety and depression in 19-26 year olds in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam during the pandemic. Of the four countries, Peru was the most affected by COVID-19, and this was reflected in mental […]
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Understanding teenage fertility, cohabitation, and marriage: the case of Peru
2016 Alan Sanchez, Marta Favara, Pablo Lavado
In the Young Lives’s surveys and national statistics, 1 in 5 women had at least one child by the age of 19. It is proposed to strengthen public policies to delay teenage pregnancy: complete secondary school, improve sex education and promote self-confidence.
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