IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mhe/chemon/2025-17.html

Beyond the Minimum: The Impact of Indonesia’s Marriage Age Law on Child Marriage and Education

Author

Listed:
  • Adrianna Bella

    (Faculty of Business and Law, Curtin University & ARC Centre of Excellence for the Elimination of Violence Against Women)

  • Nicole Black

    (Centre for Health Economics, Monash Business School, Monash University)

  • Teguh Dartanto

    (Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Indonesia)

  • Danusha Jayawardana

    (Centre for Health Economics, Monash Business School, Monash University)

  • Dennis Petrie

    (Centre for Health Economics, Monash Business School, Monash University)

Abstract

Child marriage remains a significant global issue, violating human rights and limiting development outcomes, particularly for girls. This study examines the impact of Indonesia’s first minimum marriage age (MMA) law, which in 1975 set the minimum age of marriage for girls at 16 years. The analysis relies on a regression discontinuity design to estimate the effects of the policy on child marriage and girls’ education, with specific adjustments to address non-random heaping in reported years of birth. Using data from the 2018–2021 Indonesia National Socio-economic Survey (SUSE-NAS), we find that the MMA law reduced marriages under the age of 16 by 18% and increased the age at first marriage by about five months. It also had a broader effect by delaying marriages beyond the legal threshold. The effects were stronger in regions with entrenched child-marriage norms and in urban settings. We also find evidence that the MMA policy had positive effects on educational attainment, particularly in obtaining a tertiary degree.

Suggested Citation

  • Adrianna Bella & Nicole Black & Teguh Dartanto & Danusha Jayawardana & Dennis Petrie, 2025. "Beyond the Minimum: The Impact of Indonesia’s Marriage Age Law on Child Marriage and Education," Papers 2025-17, Centre for Health Economics, Monash University.
    • Handle: RePEc:mhe:chemon:2025-17
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://monash-ch-econ-wps.s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/RePEc/mhe/chemon/2025-17.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alan I. Barreca & Jason M. Lindo & Glen R. Waddell, 2016. "Heaping-Induced Bias In Regression-Discontinuity Designs," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(1), pages 268-293, January.
    2. Esther Duflo, 2001. "Schooling and Labor Market Consequences of School Construction in Indonesia: Evidence from an Unusual Policy Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 795-813, September.
    3. Gordon Dahl, 2010. "Early teen marriage and future poverty," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 47(3), pages 689-718, August.
    4. Kasey S. Buckles & Daniel M. Hungerman, 2013. "Season of Birth and Later Outcomes: Old Questions, New Answers," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(3), pages 711-724, July.
    5. Cristina Bellés-Obrero & María Lombardi, 2023. "Will You Marry Me, Later?: Age-of-Marriage Laws and Child Marriage in Mexico," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 58(1), pages 221-259.
    6. Ambrus, Attila & Field, Erica, 2008. "Early Marriage, Age of Menarche, and Female Schooling Attainment in Bangladesh," Scholarly Articles 3200264, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    7. 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.
    8. Richard Akresh & Daniel Halim & Marieke Kleemans, 2023. "Long-Term and Intergenerational Effects of Education: Evidence from School Construction in Indonesia," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 133(650), pages 582-612.
    9. Quentin Wodon & Minh Cong Nguyen & Clarence Tsimpo, 2016. "Child Marriage, Education, and Agency in Uganda," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(1), pages 54-79, January.
    10. 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.
    11. Michal Kolesár & Christoph Rothe, 2018. "Inference in Regression Discontinuity Designs with a Discrete Running Variable," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(8), pages 2277-2304, August.
    12. Chari, A.V. & Heath, Rachel & Maertens, Annemie & Fatima, Freeha, 2017. "The causal effect of maternal age at marriage on child wellbeing: Evidence from India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 42-55.
    13. Punarjit Roychowdhury & Gaurav Dhamija, 2021. "The Causal Impact of Women’s Age at Marriage on Domestic Violence in India," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(3), pages 188-220, July.
    14. Collin, Matthew & Talbot, Theodore, 2023. "Are age-of-marriage laws enforced? Evidence from developing countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    15. McGavock, Tamara, 2021. "Here waits the bride? The effect of Ethiopia's child marriage law," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    16. 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.
    17. 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. Collin, Matthew & Talbot, Theodore, 2023. "Are age-of-marriage laws enforced? Evidence from developing countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    2. Rokicki, Slawa, 2021. "Impact of family law reform on adolescent reproductive health in Ethiopia: A quasi-experimental study," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    3. Le, Dung D. & Molina, Teresa & Ibuka, Yoko & Goto, Rei, 2024. "The Intergenerational Health Effects of Child Marriage Bans," IZA Discussion Papers 17089, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. 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.
    5. Jorge Garcia Hombrados, . "Empirical essays on development economics," Economics PhD Theses, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School, number 0318, December.
    6. 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.
    7. Amirapu, Amrit & Asadullah, M Niaz & Wahhaj, Zaki, 2022. "Can Child Marriage Law Affect Attitudes and Behaviour in the Absence of Strict Enforcement? Experimental Evidence from Bangladesh," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1107, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    8. 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.
    9. Chen, Yi & Zhao, Yi, 2022. "The timing of first marriage and subsequent life outcomes: Evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 713-731.
    10. Schultz, T. Paul, 2010. "Population and Health Policies," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4785-4881, Elsevier.
    11. Bhukta, Rikhia & Pakrashi, Debayan & Saha, Sarani & Sedai, Ashish, 2024. "Community electrification and women’s autonomy," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    12. 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.
    13. Rachel Cassidy & Anaya Dam & Wendy Janssens & Umair Kiani & Karlijn Morsink, 2024. "Targeting men, women or both to reduce child marriage," IFS Working Papers W24/23, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    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. 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.
    16. Asker, Erdal & Rees, Daniel I. & Agüero, Jorge, 2025. "Big Sisters and Child Marriage in Sub-Saharan Africa," IZA Discussion Papers 17867, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. repec:osf:socarx:vu4a8_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Jorge Garcia-Hombrados & Berkay Özcan, 2024. "Age at marriage and marital stability: evidence from China," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 297-328, March.
    19. Baten, Joerg & de Pleijt, Alexandra M., 2022. "Female autonomy generated successful long-term human capital development: Evidence from 16th to 19th century Europe," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    20. Owen Ozier, 2018. "The Impact of Secondary Schooling in Kenya: A Regression Discontinuity Analysis," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 53(1), pages 157-188.
    21. Le, Dung D. & Nguyen, Minh T. & Ibuka, Yoko, 2025. "Intergenerational effects of education on child mortality: Evidence from the compulsory primary schooling law in Vietnam," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:mhe:chemon:2025-17. 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: Johannes Kunz (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dxmonau.html .

    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.