In Bangladesh, GAGE research explores young people’s multidimensional capabilities and how the opportunities and risks they face as they move through adolescence and into young adulthood vary according to a number of characteristics, including gender, residence location, and refugee, disability and marital status. GAGE research also focuses on the programming and services available to young people, and how their uptake impacts individuals’ trajectories over time.

GAGE has three distinct workstreams in Bangladesh, all of which are longitudinal and use mixed methods. First, we are partnering with Yale University, UNHCR and the World Bank to conduct research with Rohingya refugee and Bangladeshi adolescents living in camps and host communities in Cox’s Bazar. Second, in Chittagong and Sylhet districts, we are partnering with the Government of Bangladesh, the World Bank and Room to Read to deliver and evaluate, through a randomised control trial, two remote interventions – Girl Rising and Growth Mindset – to support adolescent educational outcomes. Finally, from 2018 to 2021, GAGE followed a cohort of adolescents in low-income settlements in the city of Dhaka to explore urban poverty and its implications for adolescent capabilities.

In Bangladesh, GAGE works in partnership with the BRAC University Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD), the BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health, TAI Social Foundation, and researchers from the University of Chittagong.

In Bangladesh, GAGE employs a mixed-methods research and impact evaluation design. Quantitative surveys – which explore young people’s education, health, bodily integrity and freedom from violence, psychosocial well-being, voice and agency, and economic empowerment – have been fielded with two cohorts of adolescents: a younger cohort aged 10–12 years at baseline, and an older cohort aged 15–17 at baseline. Caregivers have also been surveyed. Qualitative research involves individual and group interviews (using tools carefully tailored for age and context) with adolescents, caregivers, and diverse key informants. These include teachers and health care providers, community, traditional and religious leaders, and policy and programming experts. 

In Bangladesh, across all studies, GAGE is following more than 7,000 young people through quantitative surveys and approximately 250 through qualitative tools.

GAGE’s sample is inclusive of the most marginalised young people who are ‘hardest to reach’. This includes young people from remote communities, young refugees, young people with disabilities, those who married as children, those who are out of school, and those who are child migrants.

GAGE research in Bangladesh is finding that entrenched obstacles related to educational transitions persist and adolescent educational experiences and learning-to-earning potential remain shaped by household wealth and social norms. While young people's attitudes around child marriage are shifting, the practice remains pervasive particularly for poor and rural girls, and Rohingya displaced girls, and truncates their aspirations. Child marriage often leads to early pregnancy, intimate partner violence and psychosocial distress, and limited access to adolescent-responsive and multi-sectoral services to mitigate these effects. Additionally, climate change-related risks continue to exacerbate pre-existing adolescent vulnerabilities and inequality, and the country's most vulnerable adolescents risk slipping further behind.