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Child Marriage and Girls’ Secondary Education: Evidence from Fixed-Effects Panel Data
Riddhi Ganesh ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-sonnet-5-5This study looks at how child marriage is related to girls' secondary education across countries from 2000 to 2023. It uses public country-level data from UNICEF, UNESCO and the Child Marriage Data Portal. Countries with more child marriage tend to have lower female secondary enrollment and completion, even after accounting for GDP per capita and urbanization. The author concludes that child marriage is a barrier to girls' education and that governments and NGOs should address it.
Key points
- Higher child marriage prevalence is associated with lower female secondary enrollment and completion.
- The association persists after controlling for GDP per capita and urbanization.
- A one-percentage-point increase in child marriage corresponds to about a -1.17 percentage point change in female secondary completion, holding GDP and urbanization constant.
- Comparing 2000 with 2022, the negative association stays relatively stable, with slight regional variation.
- The author draws policy implications for governments and NGOs working on girls' educational access.
Limitations
The data are country-level, so the findings describe associations between countries and cannot show that child marriage causes lower school completion, or what happens to individual girls. The abstract calls the analyses preliminary and does not list the countries covered or give details of the model.
Abstract
<span><span>This study examines the relationship between child marriage and female secondary education across countries from 2000 to 2023. Using publicly available data from UNICEF, UNESCO, and the Child Marriage Data Portal, I analyzed country-level indicators including child marriage prevalence (% of women aged 20–24 married before 18), female secondary school completion, GDP per capita, and urbanization. Preliminary analyses show that higher rates of child marriage are associated with lower female secondary enrollment and completion, a relationship that persists even after controlling for economic and urbanization factors. Comparisons between early (2000) and late (2022) years suggest that the negative association remains relatively stable over time, with slight variations across regions. Regression results indicate that a one-percentage-point increase in child marriage corresponds to approximately a -1.17 percentage point change in female secondary completion, holding GDP and urbanization constant. These findings underscore the importance of addressing child marriage as a barrier to female education and highlight policy implications for governments and NGOs working to improve educational access for girls. The study contributes to the broader understanding of how social and economic factors interact to influence educational outcomes for young women globally.</span></span>