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The Effects of Mexico's Child Marriage Ban on Adolescent Fertility, Domestic Violence, and Female Labor Income
Marco Campos ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-sonnet-5-5This study looks at Mexico's 2014 reform of the Federal Civil Code, which set the minimum marriage age at 18 with no exceptions. Before the reform, girls could marry at 14 and boys at 16 with consent. The study compares cohorts of women exposed and not exposed to the reform across municipalities, which had different levels of child marriage before the reform. It examines adolescent births, hospital discharges for domestic violence, and women's labor income. The authors conclude that the ban helped improve young women's well-being, but the rise in recorded domestic violence is open to more than one explanation.
Key points
- The reform is associated with a larger drop in adolescent births in municipalities where child marriage was previously common.
- Women's labor income increased in those high-prevalence municipalities.
- Reported cases of domestic violence increased in those municipalities.
- The authors say the rise in violence cases may reflect greater detection, more willingness to report, or better institutional response.
- Before 2014, Mexican law allowed marriage at 14 for girls and 16 for boys with parental or judicial consent.
Limitations
Only the abstract is available, so effect sizes, statistical significance and robustness checks are not reported. Hospital discharges for domestic violence cannot show whether actual violence changed or only reporting and detection.
Abstract
Child marriage—defined as a formal or informal union before the age of 18—has been a widespread practice in Mexico, particularly in rural and Indigenous regions. Historically, Mexican law permitted girls to marry at 14 and boys at 16, provided they had parental or judicial consent. This legal framework raised major concerns regarding the rights, health, education, and economic prospects of girls and adolescents. In response, the country enacted a reform to the Federal Civil Code in 2014, setting the minimum legal age for marriage at 18 with no exceptions. This study evaluates the impact of the child marriage ban in Mexico on three key outcomes. First, it analyzes the incidence of births to adolescent mothers. Second, it evaluates the effect on gender-based violence, using hospital discharges due to domestic violence as an indicator. Finally, it considers women’s empowerment, measured by labor income as reported in household surveys. <div> <br> </div> <div> The empirical strategy relies on a difference-in-differences design, leveraging both the temporal variation in the reform's implementation and the historical heterogeneity in child marriage prevalence at the municipal level. The analysis compares cohorts of women exposed and not exposed to the reform within each municipality, controlling for fixed effects at the municipal, cohort and year levels. This methodology allows estimation of how the reform’s impact varies according to the pre-existing intensity of child marriage in each municipality. The findings indicate that the reform is associated with a greater reduction in adolescent births in municipalities with high prior prevalence of child marriage. In addition, there is evidence of increased labor income among women in those areas, as well as an increase in reported cases of domestic violence. This latter result may reflect greater detection, increased willingness to report, or improved institutional responsiveness following the reform. Overall, these results suggest that the public policy not only restricted access to child marriage, but also contributed to improving the well-being of young women. </div>
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- A 2014 reform of the Federal Civil Code that set the minimum legal marriage age at 18 with no exceptions
- Population
- Girls and women exposed and not exposed to the 2014 reform, analysed by municipality in Mexico, with municipalities grouped by prior prevalence of child marriage
Key finding
Adolescent births fell more in municipalities with high prior child marriage prevalence.
Campos · Crossref · 1 Jan 2026