Reducing child marriage in sub-Saharan Africa: Evaluating the joint potential of protective marriage and education policies

The public health burden associated with child marriage is undeniable. To combat this practice, there has been widespread passage of national minimum-age-of-marriage policies. However, evidence on their effectiveness has been mixed. Policies that guarantee access to education may also be needed to create a viable alternative to marriage. Prior studies have not considered the complementary influence of tuition-free education policies, nor tested for potential synergy between the two policies. We conducted a natural experiment to better quantify the relationship between protective marriage laws (those that establish a minimum age of 18 even with parental consent) and tuition free secondary education on the frequency of child marriage and births, considering both the individual and synergistic contribution of the two policies. We linked globally-comparable data on national policies to multiple rounds of DHS data (2003–2021) from 16 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. We used two-way fixed effects (TWFE) models to evaluate the relationship between policy change and child marriage among women aged 15–26. Neither policy alone had a statistically significant effect on either child marriage or early fertility. However, the interaction terms were significant, suggesting that implementing both a new protective marriage policy and free tuition during the observation period had a significant impact on lowering early marriage and births. This impact was more pronounced for outcomes under age 15 as compared to those under age 18. This study provides a better understanding of what policies matter to effectively reduce child marriage. While it is possible that each policy marginally contributes to a reduction in child marriage, our evidence suggests that both protective marriage policies and tuition-fee secondary school are needed to have a meaningful impact.