IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jscscx/v11y2022i4p177-d791425.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Prevalence of Early Marriage and Its Underlying Causes in Nepal: A Mixed Methods Study

Author

Listed:
  • Prakash C. Bhattarai

    (Department of Development Education, Kathmandu University School of Education, Lalitpur 44700, Nepal)

  • Deepak R. Paudel

    (School of Business, Pokhara University, Pokhara 33700, Nepal)

  • Tikaram Poudel

    (Department of Language Education, Kathmandu University School of Education, Lalitpur 44700, Nepal)

  • Suresh Gautam

    (Department of Development Education, Kathmandu University School of Education, Lalitpur 44700, Nepal)

  • Prakash K. Paudel

    (Department of Development Education, Kathmandu University School of Education, Lalitpur 44700, Nepal)

  • Milan Shrestha

    (Faculty of Education, Tribhuvan University, Kirtipur 44600, Nepal)

  • Janes I. Ginting

    (World Vision International Nepal, Lalitpur 44700, Nepal)

  • Dhruba R. Ghimire

    (Independent Researcher, Kathmandu 44600, Nepal)

Abstract

Early marriage is one of the major traditional practices that affects the life of both boys and girls in many different ways. In this context, this research assessed the prevalence of early marriage and derived its underlying causes. Adopting a mixed methods approach, first, the study surveyed a sample of 1350 households of Nepal in which at least a marriage took place within the five years before the survey. Following a survey, secondly, the study explored 30 unique cases of early marriage, and ten among them were studied in more depth through face-to-face interviews. Logistic regression was applied to determine the factors that could influence the prevalence of early marriage. It was then followed by an analysis of the qualitative data. The research findings demonstrate that there is a high prevalence of early marriage (49.6%) among households within Nepal; nevertheless, the overall trend of early marriage is noted at a decreasing trend over the years. Undoubtedly, factors such as the level of education of the family members, the gender of the head of the household, and religion, influence the predisposition to early marriage within Nepal. Early marriage is undeniably a subjective phenomenon; however, such subjectivity is shaped by the socio-economic situation, as well as individual and family values. Thus, among others, the study implied that improving the strategies that promote higher formal schooling could reduce the prevalence of early marriage and thereby result in associated beneficial welfare effects in Nepal.

Suggested Citation

  • Prakash C. Bhattarai & Deepak R. Paudel & Tikaram Poudel & Suresh Gautam & Prakash K. Paudel & Milan Shrestha & Janes I. Ginting & Dhruba R. Ghimire, 2022. "Prevalence of Early Marriage and Its Underlying Causes in Nepal: A Mixed Methods Study," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-16, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:11:y:2022:i:4:p:177-:d:791425
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/11/4/177/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/11/4/177/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rajagopal, 2014. "The Human Factors," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Architecting Enterprise, chapter 9, pages 225-249, Palgrave Macmillan.
    2. Ibrahim, S.A., 2012. "Health in the age of politics," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 102(12), pages 2200-2200.
    3. Pintu Paul, 2020. "Child Marriage Among Girls in India: Prevalence, Trends and Socio-Economic Correlates," Indian Journal of Human Development, , vol. 14(2), pages 304-319, August.
    4. Jennifer McCleary-Sills & Lucia Hanmer & Jennifer Parsons & Jeni Klugman, 2015. "Child Marriage: A Critical Barrier to Girls' Schooling and Gender Equality in Education," The Review of Faith & International Affairs, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(3), pages 69-80, September.
    5. Jennifer Parsons & Jeffrey Edmeades & Aslihan Kes & Suzanne Petroni & Maggie Sexton & Quentin Wodon, 2015. "Economic Impacts of Child Marriage: A Review of the Literature," The Review of Faith & International Affairs, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(3), pages 12-22, September.
    6. Santow, Gigi, 1995. "Social roles and physical health: The case of female disadvantage in poor countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 147-161, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Salık, Hava & Başaran, Fatma & Duru, Pınar & Kisecik Şengül, Zeynep, 2024. "Perception of opinion leaders on society’s approach to early marriage: A phenomenological research," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).

    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. Rahman, Shaikh Moksadur, 2020. "Relationship between Job Satisfaction and Turnover Intention: Evidence from Bangladesh," Asian Business Review, Asian Business Consortium, vol. 10(2), pages 99-108.
    2. Naveena Prakasam & Louisa Huxtable-Thomas, 2021. "Reddit: Affordances as an Enabler for Shifting Loyalties," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 723-751, June.
    3. Valeriy Makarov & Albert Bakhtizin, 2014. "The Estimation Of The Regions’ Efficiency Of The Russian Federation Including The Intellectual Capital, The Characteristics Of Readiness For Innovation, Level Of Well-Being, And Quality Of Life," Economy of region, Centre for Economic Security, Institute of Economics of Ural Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, vol. 1(4), pages 9-30.
    4. Kristine Edgar Danielyan & Samvel Grigoriy Chailyan, 2019. "Delineation of Effectors Impact on The Human Brain Derived Phosphoribosylpyrophosphate Synthetase-1 Activity," Biomedical Journal of Scientific & Technical Research, Biomedical Research Network+, LLC, vol. 24(1), pages 17918-17926, December.
    5. Chuan Wang & Yupeng Liu & Wen Hou & Chao Yu & Guorong Wang & Yuyan Zheng, 2021. "Reliability and availability modeling of Subsea Autonomous High Integrity Pressure Protection System with partial stroke test by Dynamic Bayesian," Journal of Risk and Reliability, , vol. 235(2), pages 268-281, April.
    6. Sana Sadiq & Khadija Anasse & Najib Slimani, 2022. "The impact of mobile phones on high school students: connecting the research dots," Technium Social Sciences Journal, Technium Science, vol. 30(1), pages 252-270, April.
    7. Jascha-Alexander Koch & Michael Siering, 2019. "The recipe of successful crowdfunding campaigns," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 29(4), pages 661-679, December.
    8. Martins, José & Costa, Catarina & Oliveira, Tiago & Gonçalves, Ramiro & Branco, Frederico, 2019. "How smartphone advertising influences consumers' purchase intention," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 378-387.
    9. Wu, Bing & Yip, Tsz Leung & Yan, Xinping & Guedes Soares, C., 2022. "Review of techniques and challenges of human and organizational factors analysis in maritime transportation," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 219(C).
    10. Zarei, Esmaeil & Khan, Faisal & Abbassi, Rouzbeh, 2021. "Importance of human reliability in process operation: A critical analysis," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 211(C).
    11. Bilgihan, Anil & Barreda, Albert & Okumus, Fevzi & Nusair, Khaldoon, 2016. "Consumer perception of knowledge-sharing in travel-related Online Social Networks," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 287-296.
    12. Géraldine Boué & Enda Cummins & Sandrine Guillou & Jean‐Philippe Antignac & Bruno Le Bizec & Jeanne‐Marie Membré, 2017. "Development and Application of a Probabilistic Risk–Benefit Assessment Model for Infant Feeding Integrating Microbiological, Nutritional, and Chemical Components," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(12), pages 2360-2388, December.
    13. Leila Tavakoli & Hamed Zamani & Falk Scholer & William Bruce Croft & Mark Sanderson, 2022. "Analyzing clarification in asynchronous information‐seeking conversations," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 73(3), pages 449-471, March.
    14. Chiara Francalanci & Ajaz Hussain, 2016. "Discovering social influencers with network visualization: evidence from the tourism domain," Information Technology & Tourism, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 103-125, March.
    15. Lutz, Christoph & Newlands, Gemma, 2018. "Consumer segmentation within the sharing economy: The case of Airbnb," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 187-196.
    16. van Weeghel, H.J.E. & Bos, A.P. & Jansen, M.H. & Ursinus, W.W. & Groot Koerkamp, P.W.G., 2021. "Good animal welfare by design: An approach to incorporate animal capacities in engineering design," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    17. Cocoradă, Elena & Maican, Cătălin Ioan & Cazan, Ana-Maria & Maican, Maria Anca, 2018. "Assessing the smartphone addiction risk and its associations with personality traits among adolescents," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 345-354.
    18. Óscar Chiva-Bartoll & Honorato Morente-Oria & Francisco Tomás González-Fernández & Pedro Jesús Ruiz-Montero, 2020. "Anxiety and Bodily Pain in Older Women Participants in a Physical Education Program. A Multiple Moderated Mediation Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(10), pages 1-12, May.
    19. George Momanyi & Maureen Adoyo & Eunice Mwangi & Dennis Mokua, 2017. "Strengthening Strategic Reward Framework in Health Systems: A Survey of Narok County, Kenya," Global Journal of Health Science, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 9(1), pages 181-181, January.
    20. Alfano, Vincenzo & Cicatiello, Lorenzo & Gaeta, Giuseppe Lucio & Pinto, Mauro, 2019. "The gender wage gap among PhD holders: an empirical examination based on Italian data," GLO Discussion Paper Series 393, Global Labor Organization (GLO).

    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:gam:jscscx:v:11:y:2022:i:4:p:177-:d:791425. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.