IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/deveco/v160y2023ics0304387822000967.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Are age-of-marriage laws enforced? Evidence from developing countries

Author

Listed:
  • Collin, Matthew
  • Talbot, Theodore

Abstract

Child marriage is associated with negative outcomes for women and girls. Many countries have raised the legal age of marriage, but the incidence of early marriage remains high. We propose a simple test for whether laws are effective in deterring early marriage and apply it to data from both the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) covering over 100 countries using statistical tests derived from the regression discontinuity literature. By this measure, many countries are not enforcing the laws on their books, and enforcement may be not be improving over time. We argue that survey data provides a simple way to test if laws are being enforced and are binding, and interpret our results to show that legal change needs to be accompanied by better enforcement and greater monitoring to be effective.

Suggested Citation

  • Collin, Matthew & Talbot, Theodore, 2023. "Are age-of-marriage laws enforced? Evidence from developing countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:deveco:v:160:y:2023:i:c:s0304387822000967
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2022.102950
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304387822000967
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2022.102950?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Raj Chetty & John N. Friedman & Tore Olsen & Luigi Pistaferri, 2011. "Adjustment Costs, Firm Responses, and Micro vs. Macro Labor Supply Elasticities: Evidence from Danish Tax Records," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(2), pages 749-804.
    2. David S. Lee & Thomas Lemieux, 2010. "Regression Discontinuity Designs in Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(2), pages 281-355, June.
    3. Matias D. Cattaneo & Michael Jansson & Xinwei Ma, 2020. "Simple Local Polynomial Density Estimators," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 115(531), pages 1449-1455, July.
    4. Osili, Una Okonkwo & Long, Bridget Terry, 2008. "Does female schooling reduce fertility? Evidence from Nigeria," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 57-75, August.
    5. Gordon Dahl, 2010. "Early teen marriage and future poverty," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 47(3), pages 689-718, August.
    6. Bastani, Spencer & Selin, Håkan, 2014. "Bunching and non-bunching at kink points of the Swedish tax schedule," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 36-49.
    7. Alissa Koski & Shelley Clark & Arijit Nandi, 2017. "Has Child Marriage Declined in sub-Saharan Africa? An Analysis of Trends in 31 Countries," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 43(1), pages 7-29, March.
    8. Emmanuel Saez, 2010. "Do Taxpayers Bunch at Kink Points?," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 180-212, August.
    9. Matias D. Cattaneo & Michael Jansson & Xinwei Ma, 2020. "Local Regression Distribution Estimators," Papers 2009.14367, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2021.
    10. Eric V. Edmonds & Maheshwor Shrestha, 2012. "The Impact of Minimum Age of Employment Regulation on Child Labor and Schooling: Evidence from UNICEF MICS Countries," NBER Working Papers 18623, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Sarah Baird & Ephraim Chirwa & Craig McIntosh & Berk Özler, 2010. "The short‐term impacts of a schooling conditional cash transfer program on the sexual behavior of young women," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(S1), pages 55-68, September.
    12. Goodman-Bacon, Andrew, 2021. "Difference-in-differences with variation in treatment timing," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 254-277.
    13. Heath, Rachel & Mushfiq Mobarak, A., 2015. "Manufacturing growth and the lives of Bangladeshi women," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 1-15.
    14. Ambrus, Attila & Field, Erica, 2008. "Early Marriage, Age of Menarche, and Female Schooling Attainment in Bangladesh," Scholarly Articles 3200264, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    15. Brigham R. Frandsen, 2017. "Party Bias in Union Representation Elections: Testing for Manipulation in the Regression Discontinuity Design when the Running Variable is Discrete," Advances in Econometrics, in: Regression Discontinuity Designs, volume 38, pages 281-315, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    16. Prashant Bharadwaj, 2015. "Impact of Changes in Marriage Law: Implications for Fertility and School Enrollment," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 50(3), pages 614-654.
    17. Jorge Garcia-Hombrados, 2022. "Child marriage and infant mortality: causal evidence from Ethiopia," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 35(3), pages 1163-1223, July.
    18. Sarah Baird & Craig McIntosh & Berk Özler, 2011. "Cash or Condition? Evidence from a Cash Transfer Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(4), pages 1709-1753.
    19. Cristina Bellés-Obrero & María Lombardi, 2020. "Will You Marry Me, Later? Age-of-Marriage Laws and Child Marriage in Mexico," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2019_139v2, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    20. Rebecca M. Blank & Kerwin Kofi Charles & James M. Sallee, 2009. "A Cautionary Tale about the Use of Administrative Data: Evidence from Age of Marriage Laws," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 128-149, April.
    21. Barro, Robert J. & Lee, Jong Wha, 2013. "A new data set of educational attainment in the world, 1950–2010," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 184-198.
    22. Eric Edmonds & Maheshwor Shrestha, 2012. "The impact of minimum age of employment regulation on child labor and schooling ," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 1(1), pages 1-28, December.
    23. McCrary, Justin, 2008. "Manipulation of the running variable in the regression discontinuity design: A density test," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 698-714, February.
    24. Henrik J. Kleven & Mazhar Waseem, 2013. "Using Notches to Uncover Optimization Frictions and Structural Elasticities: Theory and Evidence from Pakistan," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(2), pages 669-723.
    25. Baker, Andrew C. & Larcker, David F. & Wang, Charles C.Y., 2022. "How much should we trust staggered difference-in-differences estimates?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(2), pages 370-395.
    26. Callaway, Brantly & Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C., 2021. "Difference-in-Differences with multiple time periods," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 200-230.
    27. McGavock, Tamara, 2021. "Here waits the bride? The effect of Ethiopia's child marriage law," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    28. Erica Field & Attila Ambrus, 2008. "Early Marriage, Age of Menarche, and Female Schooling Attainment in Bangladesh," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 116(5), pages 881-930, October.
    29. Matias D. Cattaneo & Michael Jansson & Xinwei Ma, 2018. "Manipulation testing based on density discontinuity," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 18(1), pages 234-261, March.
    30. Uma RANI & Patrick BELSER & Martin OELZ & Setareh RANJBAR, 2013. "Minimum wage coverage and compliance in developing countries," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 152(3-4), pages 381-410, December.
    31. Cristina Bellés-Obreroy & María Lombardi, 2020. "Will you marry me, later? Age-of-marriage laws and child marriage in Mexico," Department of Economics Working Papers wp_gob_2020_11, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Matthew Collin & Theodore Talbot, 2017. "Do Age-of-Marriage Laws Work? Evidence from a Large Sample of Developing Countries - Working Paper 458," Working Papers 458, Center for Global Development.
    2. Murat G. Kırdar & Meltem Dayıoğlu & İsmet Koç, 2018. "The Effects of Compulsory-Schooling Laws on Teenage Marriage and Births in Turkey," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 12(4), pages 640-668.
    3. Rokicki, Slawa, 2021. "Impact of family law reform on adolescent reproductive health in Ethiopia: A quasi-experimental study," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    4. Slotwinski, Michaela & Schmidheiny, Kurt, 2014. "Behavioral Responses to Local Tax Rates: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from a Foreigners Tax Scheme in Switzerland," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100292, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    5. Blaise Melly & Rafael Lalive, 2020. "Estimation, Inference, and Interpretation in the Regression Discontinuity Design," Diskussionsschriften dp2016, Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft.
    6. Katy Bergstrom & Berk Özler, 2023. "Improving the Well-Being of Adolescent Girls in Developing Countries," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 38(2), pages 179-212.
    7. Lisa Cameron & Diana Contreras Suarez & Susan Wieczkiewicz, 2023. "Child marriage: using the Indonesian family life survey to examine the lives of women and men who married at an early age," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 725-756, September.
    8. Schmidheiny, Kurt & Slotwinski, Michaela, 2018. "Tax-induced mobility: Evidence from a foreigners' tax scheme in Switzerland," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 293-324.
    9. Gustavo Canavire‐Bacarreza & Alberto Chong & Fernando Ríos‐Avila & Mónica Yáñez‐Pagans, 2020. "Will elders provide for their grandchildren? Unconditional cash transfers and educational expenditures in Bolivia," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(2), pages 424-447, May.
    10. Martha J. Bailey & Emily A. Beam & Anna Wentz, 2021. "Does younger age at marriage affect divorce? Evidence from Johnson's Executive Order 11241," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(3), pages 1328-1345, July.
    11. Ulrich Matter & Michaela Slotwinski, 2016. "Precise Control over Legislative Vote Outcomes: A Forensic Approach to Political Economics," CESifo Working Paper Series 6007, CESifo.
    12. Miron Tequame & Nyasha Tirivayi, 2015. "Higher education and fertility: Evidence from a natural experiment in Ethiopia," CINCH Working Paper Series 1509, Universitaet Duisburg-Essen, Competent in Competition and Health, revised Aug 2015.
    13. Erich Battistin & Agar Brugiavini & Enrico Rettore & Guglielmo Weber, 2009. "The Retirement Consumption Puzzle: Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 2209-2226, December.
    14. Cristina Bellés-Obreroy & María Lombardi, 2020. "Will you marry me, later? Age-of-marriage laws and child marriage in Mexico," Department of Economics Working Papers wp_gob_2020_11, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella.
    15. Bertanha, Marinho & McCallum, Andrew H. & Seegert, Nathan, 2023. "Better bunching, nicer notching," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 237(2).
    16. Pinotti, Paolo & Bhalotra, Sonia & Britto, Diogo & Sampaio, Breno, 2021. "Job Displacement, Unemployment Benefits and Domestic Violence," CEPR Discussion Papers 16350, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. Petra Persson, 2020. "Social Insurance and the Marriage Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(1), pages 252-300.
    18. Bugni, Federico A. & Canay, Ivan A., 2021. "Testing continuity of a density via g-order statistics in the regression discontinuity design," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 221(1), pages 138-159.
    19. Garcia-Hombrados, Jorge & Ozcan, Berkay, 2022. "Age at marriage and marital stability: Evidence from China," SocArXiv vu4a8, Center for Open Science.
    20. Lepage, Louis-Pierre, 2020. "Are criminals strategic? Offender responses to drug sentencing cutoffs," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Child marriage; Discontinuity tests; Rule of law; Legal effectiveness;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:deveco:v:160:y:2023:i:c:s0304387822000967. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/devec .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.