A Regional Assessment of the Risk Factors Associated with Early Marriage Among Females in India

Background and Purpose: Early marriage among girls in India is a major social and public health problem. Girls in India married before the age of 18 are not only married before what is legally sanctioned, but face adverse health, economic and social consequences. To date, studies have shown that girls married early are at risk of giving birth to children before they are emotionally and physically capable of childcare, thus leading to the stunted development of both the mother and the child (UNFPA, 2012). Girls married before 18 are also typically denied access to education and are therefore disadvantaged in their access to formal work (UNFPA, 2012). As a result, they have less negotiation power in the household leaving them subject to maltreatment and submission. While there has been a significant interest in the outcomes of early marriage among girls and the development of subsequent intervention strategies, there has been little empirical research conducted on the overarching predictors of early marriage in India at the regional level. As a result this study aims to understand the problem by examining factors, characteristics and associations not previously studied in-depth by asking the question: what are the risk factors associated with early marriage among females in India at the regional level? In doing so, this study aims to determine the most significant predictors of early marriage and gain a broad and generalizable understanding of early marriage in India.

 Methods: Data from the women’s questionnaire of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 2005-06 India was used in this study. The sample included a total of 94,194 ever-married women between the ages of 15-49 years. Data for the NFHS was collected using a stratified, multi-stage cluster sampling strategy. The study was cross-sectional, using data only from the 2005-06 survey. At the multivariate level, data were analyzed using binary logistic methods.

 Results: Controlling for religion, caste and tribe, place of residence, wealth and education, women in the Eastern and Central regions were the least likely to marry after the age of 18 compared to women in the North-East. Additionally, results suggest that attaining at least a secondary education for women was one of the strongest protective factors against early marriage as compared to women with no education. Furthermore, results suggest that women in Central and Eastern regions have lower percentages of women’s secondary education and higher percentages of no education. Women living in rural areas, as compared to urban areas were also less likely to marry after the age of 18. Women in the Central region had the highest percentages of women from rural areas.

 Conclusions/Implications: The results of this study highlight that interventions to delay early marriage among girls must be targeted at women from the Central and Eastern regions.  Additionally, creating better opportunities for girls, especially in rural areas, to attend school may serve as effective measures to increase the age at first marriage among girls.