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Child marriage has adverse consequences for young girls. Cross-sectional research has highlighted several potential drivers of early marriage. We analyse drivers of child marriage using longitudinal data from rural Malawi, where rates of child marriage are among the highest in the world despite being illegal. Estimates from survival models show that 26% of girls in our sample marry before age 18. Importantly, girls report high decision-making autonomy vis-à-vis the decision to marry. We use multivariate Cox proportional hazard models to explore the role of 1) poverty and economic factors, 2) opportunity or alternatives to marriage, 3) social norms and attitudes, 4) knowledge of the law and 5) girls' agency. Only three factors are consistently associated with child marriage. First, related to opportunities outside marriage, girls lagging in school at survey baseline have significantly higher rates of child marriage than their counterparts who were at or near grade level. Second, related to social norms, child marriage rates are significantly lower among respondents whose caregivers perceive that members of their community disapprove of child marriage. Third, knowledge of the law has a positive coefficient, a surprising result. These findings are aligned with the growing qualitative literature describing contexts where adolescent girls are more active agents in child marriages.

Despite an extensive literature on the psychological rewards of marriage and children in high-income countries, research on these relationships in low-income countries remains limited. This paper draws on data from 4,133 adult women and men interviewed in the Malawi Longitudinal Study of Families and Health to examine how marital status, categorized as never, formerly, monogamously, and polygynously married, and number of children are associated with psychological well-being. With respect to marital status, we find that women in polygynous unions fare worse than monogamously married women and this detrimental effect is stronger for women than for men. Formerly married men and women of reproductive age experience the worst psychological outcomes, although this association wanes with age. In contrast, the benefits of having children is only evident among older Malawian women. These findings offer novel insights into the patterns of nearly universal marriage and high fertility that characterize Malawi and much of sub-Saharan Africa., (© 2020 The Population Council, Inc.)

We investigated the timing of fertility and marriage in Sweden using exogenous variation in the age at school graduation that results from differences in birth month. Our analysis found that the difference of 11 months in the age at leaving school between women who were born in two consecutive months, December and January, implies a delay in the age at first birth of 4.9 months. This effect of delayed graduation also persists for the timing of second births and first marriages, but it does not affect completed fertility or the overall probability of marriage before age 45. These results suggest the existence of a relatively rigid sequencing of demographic events in early adulthood, and the age at graduation from school emerges as an important factor in determining the timing--but not the quantum--of familyformation. In addition, these effects point to a potentially important influence of social age, defined by an individual's school cohort, instead of biological age. The relevance of social age is likely due to social interactions and peer-group influences exerted by individuals who are in the same school cohort but are not necessarily of the same age.

We explore how marital aspirations are related to the sexual behaviors of adolescents and young adults in Malawi, where HIV/AIDS prevalence among adults exceeds 10%. We also consider whether the specter of AIDS is shaping ideals about marriage. By combining survey data (N = 1,087) and in-depth interviews (N = 133) with young Malawians from the Malawi Diffusion and Ideational Change Project, we show that looking for and finding a suitable spouse are linked to sexual behaviors and, thus, HIV risks. Moreover, concerns about contracting HIV are closely tied to the ideal characteristics of a future spouse. Our findings draw long-overdue attention to the importance of marital aspirations in understanding adolescent sexual behaviors and risks in the era of AIDS.

Research on the timing of events during the transition to adulthood, such as first union, sex, and birth in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), focused predominantly on measures of central tendency, notably median or mean ages. In this report, we adopt a different perspective on this topic by examining disparities in the timing of these events in 46 LMICs spanning four decades. Using Demographic and Health Surveys, we estimate ages at which 25 percent, 50 percent, and 75 percent of women have first union, birth, and sex. We compute interquartile ranges to measure within-country variation and disparities in the timing of sexual initiation and family formation. Variation in the timing of first union, birth, and sex generally increases as the median ages at these events increase. Disparities in the timing of first union and birth grew in West Africa and Latin America, and women who experience these events relatively early increasingly lag behind women who experience them relatively late. Documenting trends in measures of central tendency is insufficient to capture the complexity of ongoing changes because they mask growing disparities in the timing of family formation across many LMICs. These results are important for assessing progress toward the achievement of sustainable development goals related to the reduction of early marriages and pregnancies and highlight a need for more holistic approaches to measure the timing of family formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies on global changes in families have greatly increased over the past decade, adopting both a country‐specific and, more recently, a cross‐national comparative perspective. While most studies are focused on the drivers of global changes in families, little comparative research has explored the implications of family processes for the health and well‐being of children. This study aims to fill this gap and launch a new research agenda exploring the intergenerational implications of union‐formation and within‐couple dynamics for children's health and well‐being across low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs), both globally, regionally, and by the stage of fertility transition. We do so by adopting a macrolevel perspective and a multi‐axis conceptualization of children's outcomes—health at birth, health in later life, and schooling—and leveraging Demographic and Health Survey and World Bank data across 75 LMICs. Our results show that in societies where partnerships are characterized by more equal status between spouses—that is, where the age range between spouses and differences in years of schooling between partners are narrower—children fare better on several outcomes. These associations are particularly strong in mid‐ and high‐fertility settings. Despite a series of regularities, our results also highlight a set of findings whereby, at a macrolevel, the prevalence of marriage and divorce/separation are not invariably associated with children's outcomes, especially in LMICs where fertility is comparatively lower. We document little cross‐regional heterogeneity, primarily highlighting the centrality of demographic factors such as age vis‐à‐vis, for instance, region‐specific characteristics that are more tied to the social fabric of specific societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study evaluates whether community norms, caregiver beliefs, and adolescents' own beliefs and perceptions, focused on early marriage, predict adolescent marriage aspirations in a low‐income context. Background: The processes that contribute to adolescent marriage aspiration formation have received little attention in low‐income contexts, particularly sub‐Saharan Africa. Understanding how marriage aspirations are formed is important because they are associated with critical education and health outcomes. Method: Using data that links Malawian adolescents (N = 2089) with their caregivers (N = 1452), gender‐stratified ordered logistic regression models were used to examine key relationships. Results: Results show that community norms for youngest acceptable marriage age predict when boys want to marry, but there is no conclusive evidence that they predict when girls want to marry. This study also shows that adolescents who believe it is acceptable to marry at an early age are more likely to want to marry early themselves. Conclusion: Both community norms and adolescents' own beliefs are central to the formation of their marriage aspirations. Implications: This study recommends that programs incorporate adolescent beliefs and perceptions when designing child marriage interventions and measuring their impact. In addition, theory‐driven measurement of community norms is encouraged to better evaluate their impact on both marriage aspirations and marriage age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The objective of these analyses is to document the relationship between biomarker-based indicators of health and socioeconomic status (SES) in a low-income African population where the cumulative effects of exposure to multiple stressors on physiological functions and health in general are expected to be highly detrimental for the well-being of individuals. Methods: Biomarkers were collected subsequent to the 2008 round of the Malawi Longitudinal Study of Families and Health (MLSFH), a population-based study in rural Malawi, including blood lipids (total cholesterol, LDL, HDL, ratio of total cholesterol to HDL), biomarkers of renal and liver organ function (albumin and creatinine) and wide-range C-reactive protein (CRP) as a non-specific biomarker for inflammation. These biomarkers represent widely used indicators of health that are individually or cumulatively recognized as risk factors for age-related diseases among prime-aged and elderly individuals. Quantile regressions are used to estimate the age-gradient and the within-day variation of each biomarker distribution. Differences in biomarker levels by socioeconomic status are investigated using descriptive and multivariate statistics. Results: Overall, the number of significant associations between the biomarkers and socioeconomic measures is very modest. None of the biomarkers significantly varies with schooling. Except for CRP where being married is weakly associated with lower risk of having an elevated CRP level, marriage is not associated with the biomarkers measured in the MLSFH. Similarly, being Muslim is associated with a lower risk of having elevated CRP but otherwise religion does not predict being in the high-risk quartiles of any of the MLSFH biomarkers. Wealth does not predict being in the high-risk quartile of any of the MLSFH biomarkers, with the exception of a weak effect on creatinine. Being overweight or obese is associated with increased likelihood of being in the high-risk quartile for cholesterol, Chol/HDL ratio, and LDL. Conclusions: The results provide only weak evidence for variation of the biomarkers by socioeconomic indicators in a poor Malawian context. Our findings underscore the need for further research to understand the determinants of health outcomes in a poor low-income context such as rural Malawi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]