"Reverse Policies?" Reducing the Legal Minimum Age at Marriage Increases Child Marriage Among the Poorest in Mali

dc.contributor.author
Batyra, Ewa
dc.contributor.author
Pesando, Luca Maria
dc.date.issued
2022
dc.identifier
https://ddd.uab.cat/record/270771
dc.identifier
urn:oai:ddd.uab.cat:270771
dc.description.abstract
Altres ajuts: Juan de la Cierva (FJC2019-040652-I) ; School of Arts at McGill University and the Insight Development Grant (430-2021-00147)
dc.description.abstract
Child marriage is associated with adverse outcomes related to women's wellbeing. To curb child marriage, many countries introduced laws that ban child marriage, and a growing number of studies evaluated their impact. Scant research focused on instances where countries lowered the legal minimum age at marriage, even though such "reverse policies" could result in stalled progress in eradicating child marriage, thus threatening the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. Using visualization techniques, regression analysis and a series of robustness checks, we document changes in the prevalence of child marriage in Mali where, with the introduction of the Family Code in 2011, the minimum age at marriage of 18 was lowered to 16 years. Following 2011, the prevalence of child marriage has been progressively increasing among women with no education or living in communities characterized by low local development: while child marriage prevalence was 59% for the last cohort of women who were subject to the minimum age at marriage of 18, it increased to 79% among the youngest cohort of women who were legally allowed to marry at age 16. Repealing existing provisions that aim to protect girls can have adverse consequences on the most vulnerable strata of society and can contribute to increasing socioeconomic inequalities in child marriage even further.
dc.format
application/pdf
dc.language
eng
dc.publisher
University of Pennsylvania Population Center
dc.relation
Agencia Estatal de Investigación RTI2018-096730-B-I00
dc.relation
European Commission ERC-2020-STG-948557-MINEQ
dc.rights
open access
dc.rights
Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, i la comunicació pública de l'obra, sempre que no sigui amb finalitats comercials, i sempre que es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original. No es permet la creació d'obres derivades.
dc.rights
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
dc.subject
Child marriage
dc.subject
Policies and laws
dc.subject
Education
dc.subject
SDGs
dc.subject
Mali
dc.title
"Reverse Policies?" Reducing the Legal Minimum Age at Marriage Increases Child Marriage Among the Poorest in Mali
dc.type
Working paper


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