Peer-reviewed article
Heterogeneous Impacts of Interventions Aiming to Delay Girls' Marriage and Pregnancy Across Girls' Backgrounds and Social Contexts
Momoe Makino, Thoai Dinh Ngo, Stephanie R. Psaki, Sajeda Amin, Karen Austrian ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examined how interventions to delay girls' marriage and pregnancy work differently across Bangladesh and Zambia. The researchers analysed data from two randomised trials to understand how girls' economic opportunities, literacy levels, and community norms affect programme effectiveness. In Bangladesh, academic skill training worked best where girls had job opportunities, while gender awareness training was more effective in communities with limited work options. In Zambia, empowerment and safe spaces programmes were most effective for illiterate girls in communities where premarital sex was common.
Key points
- Academic skill training reduced child marriage in Bangladeshi villages with high girls' paid-work participation rates
- Gender-awareness training was effective in low paid-work participation villages in Bangladesh
- Empowerment interventions and safe spaces delayed pregnancy in Zambia, especially for illiterate girls in communities where premarital sex was common
- Programme effectiveness depends on local context: girls' agency and economic opportunities in Bangladesh versus empowering vulnerable girls in Zambia
- Social context factors like community decision-making patterns, premarital sex norms, and economic participation shape which interventions work
Limitations
The study analyses data from two specific trials in two countries and cannot determine whether findings generalise to other contexts or populations. The research does not explain the mechanisms through which context factors influence intervention effectiveness.
Abstract
PURPOSE: Despite many programs aiming to delay girls' marriage and pregnancy over the last 2 decades, there is no consensus yet concerning the effectiveness of different approaches and the contexts in which they are implemented. We focus on different social contexts within Bangladesh and Zambia and investigate how literacy, poverty, and community characteristics impact the effectiveness of interventions. METHODS: We utilize data sets from two randomized controlled trials conducted by the Population Council in Bangladesh and Zambia. Within each respective country, we estimate the impacts of the interventions on marriage and pregnancy among adolescent girls using the analysis of covariance estimator by different social contexts based on community-level variables. RESULTS: In Bangladesh, providing academic skill training had a significant impact on discouraging child marriage in the villages where girls' paid-work participation rate was relatively high, whereas in low paid-work participation villages, providing gender-awareness skill training had an impact. In Zambia, providing empowerment intervention and safe spaces had a significant impact on delaying pregnancy especially for illiterate girls in the communities where premarital sex was relatively common. CONCLUSIONS: In Bangladesh, where girls' paid-work participation is limited, premarital sex is uncommon, and marriage is subject to collective decision-making; the effectiveness of a program may depend on girls' agency and the availability of acceptable working opportunities. In Zambia where premarital sex is common, pregnancy may precede marriage, and marriage entails the nature of individual decision-making; empowering the most vulnerable girls seems to be more effective in delaying marriage/pregnancy.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- Multiple interventions tested: academic skill training, gender-awareness skill training, empowerment interventions, and safe spaces programmes
- Population
- Adolescent girls in Bangladesh and Zambia, analysed by subgroups based on literacy, poverty, community paid-work participation rates, and premarital sex norms
Key finding
In Bangladesh, academic skill training significantly reduced child marriage in high paid-work participation villages