When Do Laws Matter? National Minimum-Age-of-Marriage Laws, Child Rights, and Adolescent Fertility, 1989-2007
When Do Laws Matter? National Minimum-Age-of-Marriage Laws, Child Rights, and Adolescent Fertility, 1989-2007
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DOI：
10.1111/lasr.12033
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发表时间：
2013-09-01
影响因子：
2.9
通讯作者：
Brehm, Hollie Nyseth
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Kim, Minzee;Longhofer, Wesley;Brehm, Hollie Nyseth
以青少年生育率为例，我们提出这样的问题：国家法律是否以及何时对结果产生超出国际法和全球组织影响的影响。为了回答这些问题，我们利用固定效应时间序列回归模型分析了1989年至2007年115个贫困和中等收入国家最低结婚年龄法律的影响。我们发现，法律严格将最低结婚年龄定为18岁的国家青少年生育率下降幅度最大。将这一年龄定为 18 岁但允许例外情况（例如，经父母同意结婚）的国家的趋势与没有此类最低结婚年龄法的国家没有区别。因此，严格遵守全球规范的政策更有可能产生预期的结果。文章最后讨论了国家法在分散的全球体系中意味着什么，在这个体系中，多个行为体和机构使得法律的独立效力难以识别。
Using the case of adolescent fertility, we ask the questions of whether and when national laws have an effect on outcomes above and beyond the effects of international law and global organizing. To answer these questions, we utilize a fixed-effect time-series regression model to analyze the impact of minimum-age-of-marriage laws in 115 poor- and middle-income countries from 1989 to 2007. We find that countries with strict laws setting the minimum age of marriage at 18 experienced the most dramatic decline in rates of adolescent fertility. Trends in countries that set this age at 18 but allowed exceptions (for example, marriage with parental consent) were indistinguishable from countries that had no such minimum-age-of-marriage law. Thus, policies that adhere strictly to global norms are more likely to elicit desired outcomes. The article concludes with a discussion of what national law means in a diffuse global system where multiple actors and institutions make the independent effect of law difficult to identify.