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Child Marriage and Infant Mortality: Evidence from Ethiopia

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  • Jorge García Hombrados

    (Department of Economics, University of Sussex)

Abstract

This study uses age discontinuities in the degree of exposure to a law that raised the legal age of marriage for women from 15 to 18 years in some regions of Ethiopia to provide the first evidence on (a) the beneficial effects on child marriage and infant mortality of laws that ban underage marriage and on (b) the causal effect of delaying women's age at cohabitation on infant mortality using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design. The results show that although the introduction of the law did not end child marriage among Ethiopian women, it had large effects on the incidence of child marriage and on the probability of infant mortality of the first born child. Besides, the results suggest that a one-year delay in women's age at cohabitation during teenage years decreases the incidence of infant mortality of the first born by 3.8 percentage points. The size of this effect is comparable to the joint impact on child mortality of measles, BCG, DPT, Polio and Maternal Tetanus vaccinations. This effect on infant mortality seems to be closely linked to the impact of delaying cohabitation on the age of women at first birth.

Suggested Citation

  • Jorge García Hombrados, 2017. "Child Marriage and Infant Mortality: Evidence from Ethiopia," Working Paper Series 1317, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    • Handle: RePEc:sus:susewp:1317
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    File URL: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/economics/documents/wps-13-2017.pdf
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    Cited by:

    1. Mazhar Mughal & Rashid Javed & Thierry Lorey, 2023. "Female Early Marriage and Son Preference in Pakistan," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 59(10), pages 1549-1569, October.
    2. Chicoine,Luke, 2020. "Free Primary Education, Fertility, and Women's Access to the Labor Market : Evidence from Ethiopia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9105, The World Bank.
    3. 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.
    4. Esther Miedema & Winny Koster & Nicky Pouw & Philippe Meyer & Albena Sotirova, 2020. "The Struggle for Public Recognition: Understanding Early Marriage through the Lens of Honour and Shame in Six Countries in South Asia and West Africa," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 20(4), pages 328-346, October.
    5. 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.
    6. Rokicki, Slawa, 2021. "Impact of family law reform on adolescent reproductive health in Ethiopia: A quasi-experimental study," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    7. Rashid Javed & Mazhar Mughal, 2020. "Girls Not Brides: Evolution of Child Marriage in Pakistan," Working Papers hal-03038355, HAL.
    8. Jorge García-Hombrados & Berkay Ozcan, 2022. "Age at marriage and marital stability: evidence from China," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2022-014, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    9. 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.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    child marriage; infant mortality; family economics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • K0 - Law and Economics - - General

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