Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Oct 27;16(10):e0258378.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0258378. eCollection 2021.

New estimations of child marriage: Evidence from 98 low- and middle-income countries

Mengjia Liang  1 , Sandile Simelane  1 , Satvika Chalasani  2 , Rachel Snow  1
Affiliations

New estimations of child marriage: Evidence from 98 low- and middle-income countries

Mengjia Liang et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

The Sustainable Development Goals include a target on eliminating child marriage, a human rights abuse. Yet, the indicator used in the SDG framework is a summary statistic and does not provide a full picture of the incidence of marriage at different ages. This paper aims to address this limitation by providing an alternative method of measuring child marriage. The paper reviews recent data on nuptiality and captures evidence of changes in the proportion married and in the age at marriage, in 98 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Using data collected from nationally representative Demographic and Health Surveys and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys, survival analysis is applied to estimate (a) age-specific marriage hazard rates among girls before age 18; and (b) the number of girls that were married before age 18 in 2020. Results show that the vast majority of girls remain unmarried until age 10. Child marriage rates increase gradually until age 14 and accelerate significantly thereafter at ages 15-17. By accounting for both single-year-age-specific child marriage hazard rates and the age structure of the population with a survival analysis approach, lower estimates in countries with a rapid decrease in child marriage and higher estimates in countries with constant or slightly rising child marriage rates relative to the direct approach are obtained.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Observed marriage survival functions based on the latest publicly accessible data, by SDG region.
Analysis based on weighted data (n ranged from 194 in Barbados to 121,533 in India).
Fig 2
Fig 2. Observed marriage survival functions in Niger and India, latest data.
Analysis based on weighted data (n ranged from 1830 in Niger to 121,533 in India).
Fig 3
Fig 3. Proportion of women marrying before age 18, among women in age groups 18–19, age 20–24, and age 25–29 years, in select 17 countries.
Fig 4
Fig 4. Age structure–number of women age 0–24 years (thousands), by single-year age, in 17 select countries, year 2020.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Parsons J, Edmeades J, Kes A, Petroni S, Sexton M, Wodon Q. Economic Impacts of Child Marriage: A Review of the Literature. Rev. Faith Int. Aff. [Internet]. 2015. Jul 3 [cited 2020 Dec 1];13(3):12–22. Available from: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15570274.2015.1075757 - DOI
    1. Raj A, Salazar M, Jackson EC, Wyss N, McClendon KA, Khanna A, et al.. Students and brides: A qualitative analysis of the relationship between girls’ education and early marriage in Ethiopia and India. BMC Public Health. 2019. Jan 7;19(1):1–20. doi: 10.1186/s12889-018-6343-3 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Yount KM, Crandall AA, Cheong YF. Women’s Age at First Marriage and Long-Term Economic Empowerment in Egypt. World Dev. 2018. Feb 1;102:124–134. doi: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2017.09.013 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Banu A. Causes of Dropout of Female Students in Primary and Secondary Level in the Socioeconomic and Cultural Contexts of Bangladesh. J. Psychosoc. Res. [Internet]. 2011. Jan 1 [cited 2020 Nov 30];6(1):113. Available from: https://www.questia.com/read/1P3-2406466761/causes-of-dropout-of-female-...
    1. Walker J. Early marriage in Africa—trends, harmful effects and interventions. Afr. J. Reprod. Health [Internet]. 2012. [cited 2020 Nov 30];16(2):231–240. Available from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23318031?seq=1 - PubMed