Socio-demographic changes in age at first marriage in Malawi: evidence from Malawi Demographic and Health Survey data, 1992–2016

Abstract

This study aimed to identify the social and demographic correlates of the trend in age at first marriage among women in Malawi, using Malawi Demographic and Health Survey data collected between 1992 and 2016. Employing Cox Proportional Hazard modelling, the results showed that the mean age at first marriage during the 18-year period remained constant at 17.4 years. Furthermore, across all the surveys, younger women married at an early age compared with their older counterparts. The results further showed that having no education, residing in the Northern region, working, belonging to the middle and rich wealth index categories, and belonging to Tumbuka, Lomwe, Yao, Ngoni and Amanganja/Anyanja ethnicities increased the risk of early marriage. The findings suggest that policies such as promoting access to education for women and enforcing the law that restricts the legal age at which a woman can marry (18 years) should be maintained and enforced in Malawi.

Factors associated with female age at first marriage: An analysis using all waves of the Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey

“…Nasir (2013) found that Sindh has the lowest mean AFM in all four provinces of Pakistan [ 13 ]. Similar regional variations have been also observed in other Asian countries [ 24 ] and worldwide [ 21 , 23 , 29 ].…”

“…Our result revealed that women with primary education tended to marry about one year later than uneducated women. The study findings suggest that education is a highly significant factor in delaying AFM in Pakistan as in other Asian [ 15 , 17 , 19 , 20 , 22 , 27 , 33 ] and worldwide [ 21 , 23 – 25 , 29 ] studies. Results of the analysis showed that college or university education was associated with a mean female AFM than four years greater than that for women with no education.…”

“…Researchers found a strong correlation between educational status and females AFM. In Asia, the general conclusion is that females with higher education tend to delay their marriages compared with women with no or low education [ 13 – 20 ] and the same is true of developing countries worldwide [ 21 – 25 ]. Median age at marriage is also found higher in women with secondary education when compared to the uneducated in Malawi [ 26 ] Nepal [ 27 ] and Myanmar [ 28 ].…”

“…Ethnicity has also been found to be an important predictor of age at first marriage in several studies [ 30 ]. Ethnic differentials in the timing of marriage have been observed in Pakistan [ 13 ], as well as in other parts of the worlds like Bangladesh [ 24 , 31 ], Malawi [ 21 ], Ethiopia [ 32 ] and Nepal [ 27 , 33 ].…”

Premarital Fertility and Marital Timing in Malawi

“…Yet, young people must still contend with the limitations of very few formal job opportunities and curtailed chances to pursue formal education beyond the teen years, and typically must find alternative paths to forge their own livelihoods. These realities may be reflected in the unchanging statistic of the median age at first birth, which remains at 19.0 years, approximately stagnant over the past two decades (MDHS 2017; see also Baruwa et al 2020).…”