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Effect of Conflict on Age at Marriage and Age at First Birth in Rwanda

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Abstract

Using Rwanda Demographic and Health Survey 2005 data, we estimate a Cox proportional hazard model to identify the determinants of age at marriage and age at first birth and whether these decisions were affected by conflict. We find that women living in clusters accounting for a larger proportion of sibling deaths in 1994, the year of the genocide, were more likely to marry later and have children later compared with those living in clusters accounting for a lower proportion of sibling deaths. Women living in regions with higher levels of under-five mortality were more likely to have their first child earlier compared with women living in regions with lower infant mortality. The age at marriage was probably affected by two reasons: the change in age structure and sex ratio of the population following the genocide, and the breakdown of kinship in the case of women who lost their siblings.

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Notes

  1. Henceforth we refer to this report as RDHS 2006.

  2. In light of the fact that data on sibling death is collected retrospectively, a natural question that arises pertains to the quality of the data. The quality of data is also important since this is the basis on which maternal mortality rates are estimated. It does not appear that the data quality is poor or to suspect underreporting of siblings. (Rwanda Demographic and Health Survey 2005, pp. 168–170).

  3. We did not use any measure of socio economic status of the household since the information available is indicative at the time of the survey and not at the time of the marriage.

  4. The 2005 RDHS reveals that the fertility rates are the highest for the women in the age group 25–34 years (RDHS 2006, Table 4.1, p. 38). At the time of the genocide, these women were in the age group 14–23 years. They were exposed to the conflict at the beginning of their marital years or during their early childbearing years.

  5. It is not true that clusters with higher share of sibling deaths were already clusters with significantly higher age at marriage in the pre 1990 years. There a total of 462 clusters and the share of each cluster in total sibling deaths ranged from 0 to 0.29 percent. The mean age at marriage among those who married before 1990 in clusters which had a share of at least 0.22 percent of total sibling deaths was 19.9 years. The mean age at marriage among those who married before 1990 in clusters which had a share of at less than 0.07 percent of total sibling deaths was 19.6 years.

  6. We estimated model 1 using 1992 Rwanda Demographic and Health Survey data. Since information on ethnicity variable was available, we included this information in the analysis. We found that compared with Hutu, Tutsi were at lower risk of getting married earlier.

  7. The fall in proportions of Catholics could be partly due to conversions. This can be traced to the inability of Catholic Church in Rwanda to protect the victims from perpetrators of genocide. There are accounts to suggest the Church’s inability to save the lives of people (Gourevitch 1998; Diamond 2005).

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Acknowledgments

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Fifth African Population Conference organized by Government of the United Republic of Tanzania and the Union of Africa Population Studies in December 2007 and the Second Annual Workshop on The Unit of Analysis and the Micro-Level Dynamics of Violent Conflict organized by Households in Conflict Network in January 2007. We are extremely grateful to David Shapiro for detailed comments on an earlier draft. We thank Harouna Koché, Vinod Mishra, M. H. Suryanarayana, Philip Verwimp, and Damien De Walque for useful discussions and three anonymous referees of this journal for their comments. The usual disclaimer applies.

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  1. Macro International Inc., 11785 Beltsville Drive, Suite 300, Calverton, MD, 20705, USA

    Anuja Jayaraman & Tesfayi Gebreselassie

  2. Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India

    S. Chandrasekhar

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  1. Anuja Jayaraman
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  2. Tesfayi Gebreselassie
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Correspondence to Anuja Jayaraman.

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Jayaraman, A., Gebreselassie, T. & Chandrasekhar, S. Effect of Conflict on Age at Marriage and Age at First Birth in Rwanda. Popul Res Policy Rev 28, 551–567 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-008-9116-3

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