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Child marriage: some facts from selected Indian states

Author

Listed:
  • Tanusree Mishra

    (Sister Nibedita Government General Degree College for Girls)

  • Tanmoyee Banerjee (Chatterjee)

    (Jadavpur University)

Abstract

Child marriage of daughters, a social evil still prevails in many parts of India. The present study explores some causes of this social evil using DLHS4(District Level Health Survey) data while taking into account the state level variation in incidence of child marriage.We find that the probability of marriage of a girl child before legal age decreases for a son-dominant household where son dominance is instrumented using a dummy variable indicating the sex of first born child. Also, marriage pattern of parents, in terms of age difference and education difference, has influence on early marriage of girl children. Further, we observe that the incidence of child marriage is high among the poor measured in terms of asset ownership, in tribal and Muslim families.Data exploration shows that tribal populated North-East states of India, though matriarchal in nature are characterized by higher incidence of girl child marriage compared to other states in India.

Suggested Citation

  • Tanusree Mishra & Tanmoyee Banerjee (Chatterjee), 2020. "Child marriage: some facts from selected Indian states," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(3), pages 2093-2110.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-20-00091
    as

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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    child marriage; son-dominant; marriage pattern; multilevel; state level;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development

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