Peer-reviewed article
The mental health impacts of child marriage in Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam: a longitudinal investigation
Lee J, Steare T, Chakradhar J, Ellanki R, Wels J et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This longitudinal study tracked girls in Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam from childhood into adulthood to understand how child marriage affects mental health. Girls who married as children reported lower life satisfaction from age 19 through 29, but the study found that much of this difference existed before marriage due to poverty and other pre-existing disadvantages. After accounting for these prior vulnerabilities, child marriage itself had only a small additional negative impact on life satisfaction, and no impact on emotional symptoms was detected.
Key points
- 5% to 20% of girls across the four countries were child brides or in child cohabitation
- Child brides reported lower life satisfaction at age 19 (pooled estimate -0.25) and sustained this gap through age 29 (pooled estimate -0.22)
- Girls who later became child brides already had lower life satisfaction at age 8, before marriage occurred
- After matching for pre-existing disadvantages, the additional impact of child marriage on life satisfaction was small (-0.09)
- No differences in emotional symptoms were found between child brides and non-child brides
Limitations
The study cannot determine whether observed outcomes are specific to the act of marriage itself versus other life circumstances that correlate with child marriage, such as school dropout or economic hardship. The findings are limited to life satisfaction and emotional symptoms and do not address other potential harms of child marriage.
Abstract
Background Child marriage/cohabitation before 18 years of age disproportionately affects girls worldwide, but its impacts on mental health are poorly understood. Existing research is mostly cross-sectional, hence unable to estimate causal impacts or longer-term outcomes of child marriage. Methods We analysed longitudinal cohort data across Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam from Young Lives to investigate the relationship between child marriage/cohabitation and life satisfaction and emotional symptoms. We used linear regression, difference-in-differences estimation (DiD), and propensity score matching (PSM) to examine short and longer-term impacts from age 19 to 29. Findings Across countries 5% (Peru) to 20% (India) of girls were child brides. Child marriage/cohabitation predicted lower life satisfaction – pooled estimates at age 19 (-0.25 [95%CI=0.40,-0.10]), across 19-29 (-0.22 [95%CI=-0.32,-0.13]), and heterogeneity estimates suggest consistently negative impacts across countries. However, child brides have lower life satisfaction at age 8 even before marriage occurs, likely due to pre-existing disadvantages such as poverty that increase child marriage likelihood. DiD and PSM analyses confirm that most of the differences are due to pre-existing vulnerability and there is a small additional impact of child marriage on worse life satisfaction at age 19 (pooled matched estimate -0.09 [95%CI=-0.19, 0.00]). No differences in emotional symptoms were observed, nor any differences by age of marriage within the child-married sample. Interpretation Child brides have lower life satisfaction from childhood through to early adulthood, which is mostly explained by prior disadvantages and risk factors, with a small additional impact of child marriage itself. Funding Wellcome Trust
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- Longitudinal cohort tracking of girls from childhood through early adulthood with analysis of child marriage occurrence and mental health outcomes
- Population
- Girls followed in Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam from age 8 to age 29, with 5% to 20% experiencing child marriage or cohabitation
Key finding