Abstract
The chapter analyzes the trends in the age at marriage and its distribution. There is clear evidence of age heaping in the reporting of age at marriage in India: a tendency to report the age near the legal age at marriage, perhaps leading to underestimation of the phenomenon. Female child marriage below legal age is widespread in East India, especially West Bengal. In several dozen districts of Bihar, Jharkhand, and West Bengal, more than 40% of women have married before 18. Child marriage can also be identified along a strip of land extending from Rajasthan to Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Andhra Pradesh (Krishna Delta). The study also underlines the distinctive role of education and wealth in delaying the age of marriage across regions in India. In comparison, important ascribed characteristics related to marriage, such as religion and caste, play area-specific, modest, and ambiguous roles.
The authors acknowledge that parental control over marriage decisions can be compatible with postponing marriage if families are non-poor and spend time educating their daughters to graduate level or beyond. The findings highlight the persistence of child marriage in specific regions, calling for interventions to address poverty, access to higher education, and cultural and social dogmatism.
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Notes
- 1.
The original NFHS dataset and the spatial analysis methodology are described in detail in Chap. 1.
- 2.
Odds ratios measure the strength of the correlation with the outcome variable. Values above (below) one correspond to a positive (negative) association.
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Chattopadhyay, A., Singh, A. (2023). Age at Marriage of Indian Women. In: Guilmoto, C.Z. (eds) Atlas of Gender and Health Inequalities in India. Demographic Transformation and Socio-Economic Development, vol 16. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47847-5_11
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