The international community is increasingly aware of the negative impacts of child marriage on a wide range of development outcomes. Ending child marriage is now part of the Sustainable Development Goals.
... See More + Yet investments to end the practice remain limited across the globe and more could be done. In order to inspire greater commitments towards ending child marriage, this study demonstrates the negative impacts of the practice and their associated economic costs. The study looks at five domains of impacts: (i) fertility and population growth; (ii) health, nutrition, and violence; (iii) educational attainment and learning; (iv) labor force participation and earnings; and (v) participation, decision-making, and investments. Economic costs associated with the impacts are estimated for several of the impacts. When taken together across countries, the costs of child marriage are very high. They suggest that investing to end child marriage is not only the right thing to do, but also makes sense economically.
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The evidence base has long demonstrated that girls' education is among the most significant factors associated with age at marriage, with an extensive body of literature documenting lower levels of schooling as being strongly linked with a lower age at marriage.
... See More + Education also plays an important role in shaping girls' aspirations for their lives, giving them the skills they need to engage productively in their communities and the workforce, and enhancing their voice and agency in personal relationships. It is also an important determinant of their health and that of their children, and it is likely to affect the education of their children as well. Assessing the impact of child marriage on education also matters for estimating the economic costs of the practice, as discussed in a separate brief in this series. But at the same time, estimating the impact of child marriage on education outcomes, as well as understanding the costs of these impacts, has been challenging, partly because the decision to marry early and the decision to leave school are often made at or close to the same time and can be closely inter-related.
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While the proportion of girls marrying as children is declining globally, this decline is not occurring in all countries or taking place equitably within countries, nor is it happening at a sufficiently fast pace to see an end to the practice in the coming decades.
... See More + Indeed, rates of both child marriage and early childbearing have seen recent declines, but progress has been uneven, and many of the cultural, economic and social factors that have historically contributed to child marriage persist today. Further, because of the young age structures in many countries affected by child marriage, without significant changes in the immediate future, the total number of child brides in the world will remain stagnant or even increase. These alarming facts demonstrate the urgency of acting to end this harmful practice.
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The brief summarizes results from an analysis on the impacts of child marriage on women's decision-making ability within the household, land ownership, knowledge of HIV/AIDS, and birth registrations.
... See More + While these topics are all related to agency, it should be emphasized that they do not together provide a comprehensive measure of agency, which is beyond the scope of this study.
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The brief summarizes results from an analysis of the impacts of child marriage on two health outcomes - under-five mortality and stunting - for young children.
... See More + For the purposes of this brief, we focus on the impact of child marriage through early childbirths, as this is the mechanism through which child health and nutrition outcomes are most directly affected. There is a close correlation between child marriage and early childbirths in most countries - at a global level, six out of seven early childbirths take place within the context of child marriage. The brief does not include analyses for other aspects of child health that may also be affected by child marriage, nor does it consider costs that may be incurred by health systems as a result of poor child health.
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The brief summarizes results from an analysis of the impacts of child marriage on a few selected health outcomes, specifically early childbirths, maternal mortality and intimate partner violence.
... See More + It does not include analyses for other aspects of women's health that are likely to be affectedby child marriage to various extents, such as maternal morbidity, obstetric fistula, female genital mutilation/cutting, sexually-transmitted infections (including HIV and AIDS)and psychological well-being.
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The brief summarizes results from an analysis of the impacts of child marriage on women's work (specifically, labor force participation and type of work held), earnings and productivity and household welfare.
... See More + It also estimates selected economic costs of these impacts. Each day, more than 41,000 girls worldwide are married while still children, often before they may be physically and emotionally ready to become wives and mothers. Child marriage, defined as marriage or a union taking place before the age of 18, endangers the life trajectories of these girls in numerous ways. Child brides are at greater risk of experiencing a range of poor health outcomes, having children at younger ages, having more children over their lifetime, dropping out of school, earning less over their lifetimes and living in poverty than their peers who marry at later ages. Child brides may also be more likely to experience intimate partner violence, have restricted physical mobility, and limited decision-making ability. Most fundamentally, these girls may be disempowered in ways that deprive them of their basic rights to health, education, equality, non-discrimination, and to live free from violence and exploitation, which continue to affect them into adulthood. These dynamics affect not only the girls themselves, but their children, households, communities and societies, limiting their ability to reach their full social and economic potential.
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Each day, more than 41,000 girls worldwide are married while still children, often before they may be physically and emotionally ready to become wives and mothers.
... See More + Child marriage, defined as marriage or a union taking place before the age of 18, endangers the life trajectories of these girls in numerous ways. Child brides are at greater risk of experiencing a range of poor health outcomes, having children at younger ages, having more children over their lifetime, dropping out of school, earning less over their lifetimes and living in poverty than their peers who marry at later ages. Child brides may also be more likely to experience intimate partner violence, have restricted physical mobility, and limited decisionmaking ability. Most fundamentally, these girls may be disempowered in ways that deprive them of their basic rights to health, education, equality, non-discrimination, and to live free from violence and exploitation, which continue to affect them into adulthood. These dynamics affect not only the girls themselves, but their children, households, communities and societies, limiting their ability to reach their full social and economic potential.
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