Global and Regional Trends in Child Marriage

Abstract

Minh Cong Nguyen, a Ph.D. economist, is a consultant with the Africa Region at the World Bank. Previously, he served as a consultant with the South Asia Region, the Human Development Network, and the Private Sector Development Networks. His research focuses on household poverty and inequality and human development, as well as firm entry and exit, growth and productivity, using both household and enterprise surveys. He also contributes Stata routines that are used for statistical research by the academic community. Quentin Wodon is a Lead Economist in the World Bank's Education Global Practice, where he leads work on equity and inclusion in education, out of school children, and child marriage. He has worked on areas ranging from human development and infrastructure to public finance, poverty and gender in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and North America. He holds graduate degrees in business engineering, economics, and philosophy, and Ph.D.s in Economics and in Theology and Religious Studies.

Child Marriage and Faith Affiliation in Sub-Saharan Africa: Stylized Facts and Heterogeneity

“…This is as expected, given that girls who have a child before marriage tend to be older when actually marrying as compared to those marrying without a previous delivery. Being an orphan does not seem to have a statistically significant effect on the number of years of early marriage (this may seem a bit surprising given that child marriage has often been presented as 1955-1959 1985-1989 1955-1959 1985-1989 Source: Adapted from data processed by Nguyen and Wodon (2015a). Note: a, b, and c indicate another (closest) period is used due to lack of data for the period considered.…”

“…As discussed by Nguyen and Wodon (2015a), the region with the highest overall incidence of child marriage today (for girls born between 1985 and 1989) is South Asia where 45.4 percent of women born between those years were married below the age of 18. Sub-Saharan Africa is next, with 38.5 percent.…”

“…Measures of child marriage are computed at the global and regional level by Nguyen and Wodon (2015a) in this issue. All measures are obtained from Demographic and Health Surveys.…”

How Large Is the Gender Dividend? Measuring Selected Impacts and Costs of Gender Inequality

“…Table 6 and Figure 3 provide global and regional trends in child marriage from 1990 to 2017. Progress is in the right direction, but slow (Nguyen and Wodon, 2015;Le Nestour et al, 2018). The prevalence of child marriage decreased from 24.8 percent in 2000 to 19.1 percent in 2017.…”

Investing in Early Childhood Development: Essential Interventions, Family Contexts, and Broader Policies

“…Child marriage remains highly prevalent today, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia (Nguyen and Wodon, 2015). Girls who marry as children tend to have children earlier and more children over their lifetime than if they had married later.…”