Welfare Consequences of Early Marriage for Women in Developing Countries

尽管早婚在发展中世界的许多地区极为普遍，但妇女早婚的代价的性质和规模仍然是一个重要的、尚未回答的政策问题。该项目的目的是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几个方面提供经验证据。特别是，PI将探索经常被引用的假设，即女孩受教育程度较低，经历更多生殖健康并发症，生育率更高，以及由于早婚而在婚姻中经历较低水平的性别平等。一种新的识别策略将允许PI通过利用月经初潮时间的变化作为初婚年龄的工具变量来评估结婚时机对这些结果的因果影响。因为在孟加拉国，女孩通常在青春期到来之前不能进入婚姻市场，所以第一次月经时间的自然变化会在女孩面临结婚风险的最早年龄产生准随机的差异。这一方法将对关于发展中国家婚姻制度的现有文献作出重大贡献，因为它首次估计了早婚对成人结果的因果影响。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的时机决定的，而不是与贫穷和传统性别观念有关的共同因素，这些因素也阻碍了妇女的进步。因此，尽管许多关于结婚年龄和女性福利的理论预测是模棱两可的，但相互竞争的假设并没有得到充分的实证检验。例如，目前还不清楚，如果年轻时结婚的机会减少，父母是否会增加对女孩教育的投资。同样，考虑到即使是部分通过避孕来限制生育的能力，生育率水平是否会随着结婚年龄的适度上升而大幅下降也是含糊不清的。最后，尽管研究人员认为，早婚会直接降低女性在婚姻中的讨价还价能力，但理论上的预测仍然是模棱两可的。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的影响将是评估和指导旨在根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。由于结婚年龄与女性福利之间有很强的相关性，目前有大量的政策重点是制定有效的法律，禁止青少年结婚，尽管执行这些法律的困难表明，维护这些法律的代价将是高昂的。与此同时，早婚对成人结局的直接影响，以及执行同意法律的预期好处，还没有得到很好的理解。只有在早婚与女性成年后的结局存在因果关系的情况下，才有理由将重点放在强有力的政策上。此外，政策制定者不可能评估哪些亚群处于婚姻习俗变化的影响范围内。拟议研究的结果将阐明孟加拉国婚姻市场的几个特征，这些特征与针对年龄、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很可能来自于将婚姻推迟到当前同意法律所规定的年龄以下。因此，在预防青春期婚姻成本高昂的情况下，法律禁止15岁或16岁以下的婚姻可能在效力和更可行的政策措施方面具有可比性。同样，揭示早婚的特定后果的相关负担，对于确定在这种做法继续存在的情况下，哪种政策措施是最需要的至关重要。通过与ICDDR、B卫生与人口研究中心的合作，研究成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.