Welfare Consequences of Early Marriage for Women in Developing Countries

虽然在发展中世界的许多地方，女性早婚现象极为普遍，但早婚给妇女造成的代价的性质和程度仍然是一个重要的、没有答案的政策问题。该项目旨在利用孟加拉国农村地区的数据，就早婚对妇女的潜在社会经济和身体后果的若干方面提供经验证据。特别是，PI将探讨经常引用的假设，即女孩受教育较少，经历更多的生殖健康并发症，生育率较高，由于早婚，婚姻中的性别平等程度较低。一种新的识别策略将允许PI估计这些结果的因果关系的影响，利用月经初潮的时间作为初婚年龄的工具变量的变化。 由于孟加拉国的女孩通常在青春期开始之前不会进入婚姻市场，第一次月经时间的自然变化在女孩面临结婚风险的最早年龄上产生了准随机差异。这一方法将对发展中国家婚姻制度的现有文献作出重大贡献，因为它可以对早婚对成人结果的因果影响作出初步估计。虽然统计数据表明，早婚妇女的情况更糟，但很难评估这些结果在多大程度上是由结婚时间决定的，而不是由与贫穷和传统性别观点有关的共同因素决定的，这些因素也阻碍了妇女地位的提高。因此，虽然许多理论预测结婚年龄和女性福利是模糊的，竞争的假设还没有得到充分的实证检验调查。例如，如果早婚机会减少，父母是否会增加对女孩教育的投资，这一点并不清楚。同样，即使有部分能力通过避孕来限制生育，生育率是否会随着结婚年龄的适度提高而大幅下降也是不明确的。最后，虽然研究人员认为早婚直接降低了女性在婚姻中的讨价还价能力，但理论预测再次模棱两可。更广泛的影响。估计结婚时机的因果影响的最重要的更广泛影响是评估和指导旨在消除童婚习俗的政策措施，包括确定如何最好地针对这些政策，以及这些政策的最低执行年龄。由于结婚年龄与妇女福利之间的密切关系，目前的政策重点是制定禁止青少年婚姻的有效法律，尽管执行这些法律的困难表明，维护这些法律的代价很高。与此同时，早婚对成人结果的直接影响以及执行同意法的预期好处还没有得到很好的理解。只有在早婚与女性成年后的结果存在因果关系的情况下，才有理由采取强有力的政策重点。此外，决策者无法评估哪些亚群体处于改变婚姻习俗的影响范围之内。拟议研究的结果将揭示孟加拉国婚姻市场的若干特点，这些特点与针对年龄、家庭结构和社会经济群体的最佳政策努力有关。也许最重要的是，推迟结婚的大部分好处可能来自于将婚姻推迟到现行法律规定的同意年龄以下。因此，对15岁或16岁以下婚姻的法律的禁令在效果上可能相当，在防止青少年婚姻代价高昂的环境中，可能是更可行的政策措施。同样，揭示早婚的具体后果的相对负担对于确定在这种做法继续存在的情况下最需要哪些补充政策措施至关重要。通过与ICDDR、B健康人口研究中心的合作，研究结果将直接传播给当地项目官员，以便更好地指导未来的政策制定。

Although early female marriage is extremely prevalent in many parts of the developing world, the nature and magnitude of the cost to women of marrying young remains an important and unanswered policy question. This project aims to provide empirical evidence on several dimensions of the potential socio-economic and physical consequences of early marriage for women using data from rural Bangladesh. In particular, the PI will explore the commonly cited hypotheses that girls attain less schooling, experience more reproductive health complications, have higher fertility and experience lower levels of gender equality in marriage as a result of marrying young. A novel identification strategy will allow the PI to estimate the causal effect of marriage timing on these outcomes by exploiting variation in the timing of menarche as an instrumental variable for age of first marriage. Because girls in Bangladesh are typically withheld from the marriage market until the onset of puberty, natural variation in the timing of first menstruation generates quasi-random differences in the earliest age at which girls are at risk of marriage.Intellectual Merit. This approach would contribute significantly to the existing literature on marriage institutions in developing countries by generating the first estimates of the causal effect of early marriage on adult outcomes. While statistics indicate that women in early marriages fare worse, it is difficult to assess the extent to which these outcomes are driven by the timing of marriage as opposed to common factors related to poverty and traditional gender views that also hinder female advancement. Hence, although many theoretical predictions related to marriage age and female welfare are ambiguous, competing hypotheses have not been adequately investigated with empirical tests. For instance, it is unclear whether parents would increase investment in girls' schooling if opportunities for marriage at young ages fall. Similarly, given even partial ability to limit childbearing with contraception, it is ambiguous whether fertility levels would fall significantly with a modest rise in age at marriage. Finally, while researchers have posited that marrying young directly reduces women's bargaining power in marriage, the theoretical predictions are again ambiguous. Broader Impact. The most important broader impact of estimating the causal influence of marriage timing would be to evaluate and direct policy measures aimed at eradicating child marriage practices, including determining how best to target such policies, and at what minimum age should these policies be enforced. On account of the strong correlations between age of marriage and female welfare, there is presently a great deal of policy focus on instituting effective laws banning adolescent marriage, although the difficulty in enforcing such laws suggests that upholding them would be costly. Meanwhile, the direct effect of early marriage on adult outcomes and hence the expected benefits of enforcing consent laws is not well understood. Only where early marriage is causally related to female outcomes in adulthood is a strong policy focus justified. Furthermore, it is impossible for policy makers to assess which subpopulations lie in the margin of influence for changing marriage practices. Results of the proposed research would shed light on several features of marriage markets in Bangladesh relevant for optimally targeting policy efforts towards ages, family structures and socio-economic groups. Perhaps most importantly, it is likely that most of the benefitsto marriage delay come from postponing marriages below the current age of consent laws. Hence,legal bans on marriage below 15 or 16 may be comparable in effectiveness and more feasible policy measures in settings in which adolescent marriage is costly to prevent. Similarly, uncovering therelative burden of particular consequences of marrying young is critical for determining whichcomplimentary policy measures are needed most in settings in which the practice continues. Throughcollaborative efforts with ICDDR,B Centre for Health & Population Research, research findings willbe disseminated directly to local program officials in order to better direct future policy formulation.