Improving the Well-Being of Adolescent Girls in Developing Countries

Bergstrom, Katy; Özler, Berk

doi:10.1596/1813-9450-9827

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 125 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This differentiates it from the many conditional cash transfers operating around the world which incentivize keeping children in school and have been shown to have little impact on child marriage (for example, see Cahyadi et al, 2020). Other interventions, like constructions of schools or jobs opportunities can potentially have a positive effect, but limited evidence is available (for a literature review on interventions that potentially can delay marriage see Bergstrom and Ozler, 2021).…”

Section: Conclusion and Policy Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Child marriage: using the Indonesian family life survey to examine the lives of women and men who married at an early age

2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

An understanding of the experiences of men and women who marry before adulthood is important in motivating social change. Using fixed effects estimation (the inclusion of geographic fixed effects at diminishing levels of aggregation and sister fixed effects where possible) on panel data from the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS), we follow the lives of a sample of 40,800 women and men for up to two decades and examine a wide range of factors associated with child marriage. We examine the lives of both girls and boys who marry early, and the differential experience of girls marrying older men versus young boys. Child marriage is found to be associated with lesser educational attainment, lower earnings and less say in household decision-making, for both men and women. Women are less likely to have a medically-supervised birth and their children are more likely to die, be stunted and perform worse on cognitive tests. Negative factors are mostly exacerbated when young girls marry similarly underage men.

show abstract

Section: Conclusion and Policy Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Child marriage: using the Indonesian family life survey to examine the lives of women and men who married at an early age

2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Adolescents have different roles in society: on the one hand, they represent the development of countries as they will be the adults of tomorrow, so they are the workforce of the future and the caregivers of generations to come ( 1 , 2 ). On the other hand, adolescence is portrayed as one of the most stressful phases in life ( 3 , 4 ) because it is connected to many challenges, such as hormonal and physical changes ( 5 , 6 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Contexts marked by structural inequality – characterized by low income, unemployment, social exclusion as well as poor access to health services, education, and housing – undermine the quality of life and lead to discontent among the most vulnerable populations ( 17 , 19 ). Especially among young people, inequality diminishes the possibilities to participate in society and to manage the transition to adulthood successfully, i.e., reaching their full potential and ultimately contributing to the improvement of society ( 1 , 20 ). Thereby, social inequality allows for the violation of adolescents’ rights, especially in families with low SES ( 21 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mental health among adolescents exposed to social inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean: a scoping review

Sánchez-Castro,

Pilz González,

Arias-Murcia

et al. 2024

Front. Public Health

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background and objectiveAdolescents from Latin America and the Caribbean grow up in a context of social inequality, which diminishes their well-being and leads to impaired emotional-cognitive development. To understand the problem, it is important to synthesize the available research about it. This study aims to explore the knowledge about adolescents’ mental health in Latin America and the Caribbean exposed to social inequality.MethodsA systematic scoping review was conducted encompassing a search in five databases (Medline, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Scopus, and LILACS) in June 2022. Articles of various typologies were included without time limit. After two rounds of screening, relevant data were manually extracted and synthesized into self-constructed themes using thematic analysis.ResultsOut of 8,825 retrieved records, 42 papers were included in the final review, with a predominance of quantitative approaches. The synthesis revealed two main analytical themes: (a) defining social inequality, wherein intersecting inequalities produce discrimination and determine conditions for social vulnerability; (b) social inequality and mental health, which highlights the association between socio-structural difficulties and emotional problems, amplifying vulnerability to mental ill health and poor mental health care.ConclusionThe scientific evidence reveals that social inequality is related to impaired well-being and mental ill health on the one hand and a lack of access to mental health care on the other hand.

show abstract

“…Dialogue and deliberation, particularly when involving members of the community with more power, are often cited as key to how community-wide norms are upheld and how they change (Heller and Rao 2015). Despite the fact that adolescent girls are often a marginalized group within their communities, much of the existing literature on improving the outcomes of adolescent girls in contexts with restrictive norms intervenes solely with this group (Adoho et al 2014;Buehren et al 2016;Bandiera et al 2019;Buchmann et al 2017;Bergstrom and Özler 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender norms, violence and adolescent girls’ trajectories: evidence from a field experiment in India

Andrew¹,

Krutikova²,

Smarrelli³

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Striking gender gaps persist in fundamental aspects of human welfare. In India, the setting of this paper, these gaps are particularly large. Interventions often target adolescent girls with the aim of empowering them to make choices that go against the status quo -to remain in school longer or marry later, for example. This approach may inadvertently expose girls, who are often marginalized within their communities, to new risks if it encourages them to violate prevailing gender norms. In this study, we design an experiment to compare the effectiveness of targeting only adolescent girls with an approach that additionally engages with the enforcers of gender norms in the wider community. We find that both arms of the trial led to a reduction in school dropout and early marriage. We see large improvements in girls' mental health but only in the arm which engages with the wider community. Improvements in mental health can be explained by community engagement causing gender norms to become more progressive and causing a reduction in the severity of sanctions that girls face for breaking norms. Both adolescent girls and their mothers perceived these shifts in norms and sanctions. Our results demonstrate that in settings where unequal outcomes are sustained through restrictive gender norms, change in the attitudes and behavior of the enforcers of these norms is critical for achieving meaningful improvements in womens well-being. * We thank and acknowledge Pranita Achyut, Madhumita Das, Ravi Verma, Abhishek Gautam, Ronak Soni, and Sanjay Kumar for their fundamental role in intervention and study design. We thank all the peer mentors, field facilitors, Pankh sakhis and other members of Pradan and ICRW based in Dholpur whose effort and dedication made the Pankh program possible. We thank

show abstract

Improving the Well-Being of Adolescent Girls in Developing Countries

Cited by 7 publications

References 125 publications

Child marriage: using the Indonesian family life survey to examine the lives of women and men who married at an early age

Child marriage: using the Indonesian family life survey to examine the lives of women and men who married at an early age

Mental health among adolescents exposed to social inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean: a scoping review

Gender norms, violence and adolescent girls’ trajectories: evidence from a field experiment in India

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About