Should we care: a qualitative exploration of the factors that influence the decision of early marriage among young men in urban slums of Bangladesh

Abstract

ObjectivesTo explore how adolescent and young men negotiate the complex realities of lives to explain their pathways into and reasons for early marriage in urban slums of Bangladesh.DesignThe qualitative data used here came from a larger 3-year study that used both quantitative and qualitative research methods.SettingInterviews were conducted in two of the largest slums in Dhaka and Chittagong city of Bangladesh between December 2015 and March 2018.ParticipantsThis paper uses qualitative data from 22 in-depth interviews (IDIs) and three focus group discussions (FGDs) with adolescent and young men aged 15–24 years; 13 IDIs and 4 FGDs with parents and 11 key-informant interviews with community leaders. The purposively selected respondents were interviewed in their respective settings.ResultsIn the context of urban slums, this study revealed multiple factors influence early marriage decision-making processes among young men. These factors include socially perceived phenomenon of adulthood and readiness of marriage, poverty leading to drop out from schools and early initiation to earning livelihood, manifestations of increasing individual aspiration and agency, fulfilment of romance and erotic desires and dreams of forming one’s own family. In addition, parental and immediate societal interference to preserve norms around gender and society can act as catalysts for this decision.ConclusionsStudy findings imply that complex structural factors, social and gender norms that are contributing to the early marriage for both adolescent boys and young men in Bangladesh’s urban slums. These are locations where conservatism, poverty and urbanisation intersect resulting in early and often unprepared entry to adulthood for young men impacting on their development and well-being. It is, therefore, critical that young men should be included in the national and global conversations around child marriage and child marriage prevention programme.

Spatial pattern and influential factors for early marriage: Evidence from Bangladesh Demographic Health Survey Data 2017-18

“…In this study, we found a higher occurrence of early marriage among Muslim women than their non-Muslim counterparts which is consistent with previous studies in Bangladesh [10,34,42,43,56,76]. The reason should be traditional norms of giving marriage early, mostly soon after the girls experience menstruation, that comes from misinterpretations of the religious doctrines [7,14,32,34,37,38,41,43,44,[46][47][48][49]. Also, preference for nding suitable brides/grooms within the same caste still prevails among Hindu communities, which constitute the lion part of the non-Muslim people in Bangladesh.…”

“…These studies indicate that early marriage is more common among women from low socioeconomic tiers, with low levels of education [16,[28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38] and/or from conservative families [36, [39][40][41][42][43][44][45]. Besides, existing evidence suggests a signi cant role of community-level factors such as cultural and societal norms in early marriage [7,14,32,34,37,38,41,43,44,[46][47][48][49]. These predictors vary across regions in most LMICs, including Bangladesh [10,33,45,50] and the strengths of associations are usually stronger for rural than urban women [37,41,51,52].…”

‘The School Was Closed, So When They Brought Me A Husband I Couldn’t Say No’: Exploring the Gendered Experiences of Child Marriage Amongst Adolescent Girls and Boys in Ethiopia

“…An important contribution of this article to the broader evidence base is its inclusion of boys (on which there is very limited research, see, e.g. Biswas et al 2020). Our findings show that boys are at much lower risk of child marriage, and particularly arranged marriage.…”

“…3 This article explores the gendered experiences of child marriage amongst adolescent girls and boys in Ethiopia, focusing on the contrasting drivers of adolescentinitiated and parent-arranged child marriage to understand how the context-specific interplay of economic factors and discriminatory gender norms affects girls and boys differently. This is an area which has received very limited research attention globally (Gaston et al 2019;Biswas et al 2020), and even less in the sub-Saharan African regional and Ethiopian contexts (Amoo et al 2018), notwithstanding the call in the African Charter for the Rights and Welfare of the Child for the prohibition of 'child marriage and the betrothal of girls and boys' (Article 21: 2). We draw on baseline and midline qualitative data collected for the Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE) study from 2017-2018 and 2019-2020 in Amhara and Oromia regions, both identified by the Ethiopian government and UNICEF as child marriage 'hotspots', to explore the diverse drivers and patterning of child marriage amongst adolescent girls and boys.…”

Social behavior practices for child protection and well‐being among low‐income urban households in Bangladesh

“…According Khan (2014) found that the rate of child marriage among girls is 80% and boys at 46% in the slums areas in Dhaka city. Biswas et al (2020) argued that some interlinking factors such as structural, social, and gender norms are the root causes behind this in the slum areas in Bangladesh.…”