Has Child Marriage Declined in sub‐Saharan Africa? An Analysis of Trends in 31 Countries

Koski, Alissa; Clark, Stuart; Nandi, Arijit

doi:10.1111/padr.12035

Cited by 99 publications

(105 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Early marriage is particularly noteworthy. Although rates are generally falling, more than half of girls continue to be married before the age of 18 years across many countries in sub-Saharan Africa 122 . Early marriage predicts early parenthood, overall fertility and poor maternal and child nutrition [123][124][125] .…”

Section: Adolescence and The Next Generationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adolescence and the next generation

Patton

Olsson

Skirbekk

et al. 2018

Nature

290

228

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Adolescent growth and social development shape the early development of offspring from preconception through to the post-partum period through distinct processes in males and females. At a time of great change in the forces shaping adolescence, including the timing of parenthood, investments in today’s adolescents, the largest cohort in human history, will yield great dividends for future generations.

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Section: Adolescence and The Next Generationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adolescence and the next generation

Patton

Olsson

Skirbekk

et al. 2018

Nature

290

228

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“…First, estimates are based on self-reports, which tend to undercount deaths. Our estimates are thus conservative, especially for older mothers who tend to provide incomplete data (38). Because we use the same data source to generate IMRs and U5MRs, this bias applies equally to these measures.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Maternal cumulative prevalence measures of child mortality show heavy burden in sub-Saharan Africa

Smith‐Greenaway

Trinitapoli

2020

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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We advance a set of population-level indicators that quantify the prevalence of mothers who have ever experienced an infant, under 5-y-old child, or any-age child die. The maternal cumulative prevalence of infant mortality (mIM), the maternal cumulative prevalence of under 5 mortality (mU5M), and the maternal cumulative prevalence of offspring mortality (mOM) bring theoretical and practical value to a variety of disciplines. Here we introduce maternal cumulative prevalence measures of mortality for multiple age groups of mothers in 20 sub-Saharan African countries with Demographic and Health Surveys data spanning more than two decades. The exercise demonstrates the persistently high prevalence of African mothers who have ever experienced a child die. In some African countries, more than one-half of 45-to 49-y-old mothers have experienced the death of a child under age 5, and nearly two-thirds have experienced the death of any child, irrespective of age. Fewer young mothers have experienced a child die, yet in many countries, up to one-third have. Our results show that the mIM and mU5M can follow distinct trajectories from the infant mortality rate (IMR) and under 5 mortality rate (U5MR), offering an experiential view of mortality decline that annualized measures conceal. These measures can be adapted to quantify the prevalence of recurrent offspring mortality (mROM) and calculated for subgroups to identify within-country inequality in the mortality burden. These indicators can be used to improve current understandings of mortality change, bereavement as a public health threat, and population dynamics.child mortality | sub-Saharan Africa | bereavement D ramatic reductions in the infant mortality rate (IMR) and under 5 mortality rate (U5MR) over the past half-century are among the global health community's most notable achievements (1). The trends are clear, and the message is positive: the world today is healthier and safer for young people than ever before.Sub-Saharan African countries have experienced some of the swiftest reductions in the IMR and U5MR (2). However, the all-time low IMRs and U5MRs conceal the pervasiveness with which contemporary populations experience children die. The IMR and U5MR provide annualized snapshots of a population's mortality regime; these measures are, by design, amnesiac to any legacy of higher mortality. Yet, African mothers today had children under higher mortality conditions, and these conditions persist in surviving mothers' lives. Moreover, because each live birth exposes mothers to the risk of a child dying, high fertility multiplicatively increases African mothers' lifetime likelihood of experiencing a child's death. The clustering of deaths among siblings in high-mortality countries is well documented (3), yet we lack population-level measures that summarize the mortality burden from the perspective of parents.We present population-level mortality measures that estimate the proportion of mothers in a population who have experienced the loss of a child. Specifically, we cal...

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“…Child marriage remains very common in some regions of the world, and studies from low‐ and middle‐income countries have examined a wider range of outcomes. In these settings, child marriage is associated with limited access to contraception and more unwanted pregnancy, HIV infection, domestic violence and suicidal ideation .…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%