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MEASURING THE IMPACT OF CHILD MARRIAGE ON TOTAL FERTILITY: A STUDY FOR FIFTEEN COUNTRIES

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2017

Adenike Onagoruwa Open the ORCID record for Adenike Onagoruwa [Opens in a new window]  and
Quentin Wodon
Adenike Onagoruwa*
Affiliation:
The World Bank, Washington, DC, USA
Quentin Wodon
Affiliation:
The World Bank, Washington, DC, USA
*
1Corresponding author. Email: aonagoruwa@worldbank.org
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Summary

Child marriage has significant negative impacts, not only for girls, but also for a range of development outcomes. This study aimed to assess, in a more detailed way than done so far, the magnitude of the relationship between child marriage and total fertility in multiple countries representing diverse settings. Data from the most recent Demographic and Health Surveys in the fifteen countries of interest were used. Analysis was restricted to a subsample of women aged 35–49 years in order to capture completed fertility. Poisson regression was conducted to estimate the impact of each additional year of early marriage on the total number of births women have, controlling for selected sociodemographic characteristics. Counterfactual analyses were carried out to estimate the reduction in the number of children that women would have over their lifetime in the absence of child marriage. Controlling for socioeconomic and other characteristics, girls who marry as children have more children over their lifetime than women marrying after the age of 18. Nationally, across fifteen countries, the reduction in total fertility from ending child marriage ranges from 0.24 to 1.06 children per woman. The simulated change in total fertility that would result from ending child marriage tends to be higher in countries that have a higher incidence of child marriage.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Biosocial Science , Volume 50 , Issue 5 , September 2018 , pp. 626 - 639
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press, 2017 

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