write an essay on child marriage

Essay on Child Marriage

Students are often asked to write an essay on Child Marriage in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

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100 Words Essay on Child Marriage

Introduction.

Child marriage is a global issue where a child, usually under 18 years, is married off. This practice affects both girls and boys but it’s more prevalent among girls.

Causes of Child Marriage

Many factors contribute to child marriage. Poverty, cultural traditions, and lack of education often drive families to marry off their children at a young age.

Consequences

Child marriage has severe consequences. It often leads to early pregnancies, health risks, and limits opportunities for education and career growth.

To end child marriage, we need to focus on education, enforce laws against it, and change societal attitudes.

Also check:

• 10 Lines on Child Marriage

250 Words Essay on Child Marriage

Child marriage, a deeply entrenched social issue, is a practice that involves the marriage of one or both parties before they reach the age of 18. Globally, it is considered a violation of human rights, yet it continues to persist in many societies due to a complex interplay of socio-economic and cultural factors.

The roots of child marriage are multifaceted. Poverty is a significant driver, with families marrying off young daughters to reduce their economic burden. Traditional norms and gender stereotypes also play a role, perpetuating the belief that a girl’s value lies in her ability to become a wife and mother. Furthermore, in some societies, child marriage is used as a strategy to strengthen familial ties or secure political alliances.

Consequences of Child Marriage

The consequences of child marriage are profound and far-reaching. It often results in early pregnancy, posing substantial health risks to young girls whose bodies are not yet mature enough for childbirth. It also hinders girls’ education and personal development, limiting their opportunities and perpetuating cycles of poverty.

Efforts to Combat Child Marriage

Efforts to combat child marriage span from local to global levels. They encompass law enforcement, advocacy for girls’ education, and initiatives to empower girls. However, for these efforts to be effective, it is crucial to address the underlying socio-economic factors that give rise to child marriage.

Child marriage is a complex issue that requires comprehensive, multi-faceted approaches to eradicate. By promoting education, gender equality, and economic stability, societies can help ensure that every child is afforded the right to a safe and fulfilling childhood.

500 Words Essay on Child Marriage

Child marriage, a prevalent practice in many cultures and societies, is a complex issue that infringes upon the rights and development of children, particularly girls. It is a deep-rooted practice, often perpetuated by poverty, gender inequality, traditions, and lack of education. This essay delves into the implications, causes, and potential solutions to child marriage.

The Implications of Child Marriage

Child marriage poses significant risks to the physical, psychological, and emotional well-being of children. It often leads to early pregnancies, which present health risks for both the mother and the child. Moreover, child brides are more likely to experience domestic violence and are less likely to receive proper education. This practice also perpetuates the cycle of poverty, as child brides are less likely to contribute economically to their communities.

Underlying Causes

The causes of child marriage are multifaceted and deeply entrenched in societal norms and structures. Poverty is a significant factor, with families marrying off their daughters to lessen financial burdens. Gender inequality also plays a crucial role, with girls often valued less in societies, leading to their early marriage. Additionally, traditional beliefs and lack of education contribute to the persistence of this practice.

Legislation and Its Limitations

Many countries have enacted laws to prevent child marriage, setting the minimum age for marriage at 18. However, the enforcement of these laws often proves challenging due to societal norms and lack of awareness. Moreover, in some societies, legal loopholes allow child marriage to continue under the guise of cultural or religious practices.

Addressing Child Marriage

Addressing child marriage requires a multifaceted approach. Education is a powerful tool in this regard. Empowering girls through education can help them understand their rights and resist early marriage. Furthermore, educating communities about the detrimental effects of child marriage can foster change in societal attitudes.

Economic empowerment is also crucial. By providing families with financial stability, the economic incentive for child marriage decreases. Social protection measures, such as cash transfers, can help achieve this.

Lastly, legal measures need to be strengthened. Laws against child marriage should be enforced strictly, and legal loopholes need to be addressed.

Child marriage is a violation of children’s rights and a practice that hampers societal development. While it is deeply entrenched in many societies, a combination of education, economic empowerment, and legal measures can help combat this practice. It is crucial for all stakeholders, including governments, NGOs, and communities, to work together to end child marriage and ensure a better future for all children.

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• Child marriage

Child marriage threatens the lives, well-being and futures of girls around the world.

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Child marriage refers to any formal marriage or informal union between a child under the age of 18 and an adult or another child.

Despite a steady decline in this harmful practice over the past decade, child marriage remains widespread, with approximately one in five girls married in childhood across the globe. Today, multiple crises – including conflict, climate shocks and the ongoing fallout from COVID-19 – are threatening to reverse progress towards eliminating this human rights violation. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals call for global action to end child marriage by 2030.

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Child marriage is often the result of entrenched gender inequality, making girls disproportionately affected by the practice. Globally, the prevalence of child marriage among boys is just one sixth that among girls.

Child marriage robs girls of their childhood and threatens their well-being. Girls who marry before 18 are more likely to experience domestic violence and less likely to remain in school. They have worse economic and health outcomes than their unmarried peers, which are eventually passed down to their own children, straining a country’s capacity to provide quality health and education services.

Child brides often become pregnant during adolescence, when the risk of complications during pregnancy and childbirth increases. The practice can also isolate girls from family and friends, taking a heavy toll on their mental health.

UNICEF's response

Addressing child marriage requires recognition of the factors that enable it. While the roots of the practice vary across countries and cultures, poverty, lack of educational opportunities and limited access to health care perpetuate it. Some families marry off their daughters to reduce their economic burden or earn income. Others may do so because they believe it will secure their daughters’ futures or protect them.

Norms and stereotypes around gender roles, as well as the socio-economic risk of pregnancy outside of marriage, also uphold the practice.

Because UNICEF works with a range of stakeholders – from grassroots organizations to high-level decision makers – across a scope of rights issues, we are uniquely positioned to identify and address the systemic barriers to reproductive health and gender equality.

In 2016, UNICEF, together with UNFPA , launched the Global Programme to End Child Marriage . Empowering young girls at risk of marriage or already in union, the programme have reached more than 21 million adolescent girls with life-skills training, comprehensive sexuality education and school attendance support since 2016. Over 353 million people, including key community influencers as well as men and boys specifically, have also engaged in dialogue and communication campaigns to support adolescent girls, or other efforts to end child marriage.

Last updated July 2023

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Technical notes and fact sheets

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Online capacity-strengthening courses

• Exploring the drivers of behaviour: The case of child marriage
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Child Marriage: The Devastating End of Childhood

The devastation of child marriage effectively ends a girl’s childhood. How? Forced marriage robs a girl of her education and more, replacing lessons learned in the classroom with adult responsibilities, including forced pregnancy, well before she’s ready. This not only violates her rights, but risks her life, the lives of her children and the future of her community.

Tragically, about 40 million girls worldwide are currently married or in a union – and without our help, an estimated 150 million girls will be married in the next decade. This is unacceptable.

Read more about the issues, Save the Children’s impact – and how you can help end child marriage.

What is child marriage?

Asha, 19, found out that her family were making arrangements for her wedding when she was 15. The union had been agreed when she was 3 years old. She enlisted the Children’s Group and Child Protection Committee to lobby her father who eventually gave in and stopped the marriage. She has since helped other girls stop their marriages and has continued her education.

Child marriage is formal or informal union before age 18. It is a violation of children’s human rights  and a form of gender-based violence that robs children of childhood. Child marriage also  disrupts their education and drives vulnerability to violence, discrimination and abuse.

Yet these are some of today’s tragic child marriage statistics:

•  About 40 million girls ages 15-19 are currently married or in a union worldwide.
• Each year, some 12 million more girls will marry before reaching age 18 – and of those, 4 million are under age 15.
• Save the Children’s Global Girlhood Report estimates that an additional 2.5 million girls are at risk of child marriage globally between 2020 and 2025, as a result of reported increases in all types of gender-based violence due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• We project that up to 15 million girls and boys will never return to school following pandemic lockdowns and school closures. Children who don’t come back are at greater risk of early marriage, child labor and recruitment into armed forces.
• By 2030, it’s estimated that 150 million girls will lose their childhoods due to child marriage.

What are the effects of child marriage?

Rizwana inside the the temporary shelters that she calls home. Rizwana had several difficult years but was assisted through them by Save the Children to better educate her family and avoid attempts of child marriage and child labor and eventually continue with her education.

Early marriage has devastating consequences for a girl’s life. Effectively, child marriage ends her childhood. Girls are forced into adulthood before they is physically and mentally ready. Child brides are frequently deprived of their rights to health, education, safety and participation. What’s more, an arranged marriage often means a girl is forced to wed an, at times significantly, older man.

Girls married young are far less likely to stay in school, with lifelong economic impacts. They are often isolated, with their freedom curtailed. They are at higher risk of physical and sexual violence. Child brides are also at greater risk of experiencing dangerous complications in pregnancy and childbirth, contracting HIV/AIDS and suffering domestic violence.

What are the effects of forced pregnancy?

“At the age of thirteen I was forced to marry a man who was much older than me," says 15-year old Aisha, seen here with her two-year old daughter. "I lived with him for awhile but we couldn’t get along because he was so much older than me.

Every year, around 17 million girls give birth. Forced pregnancy and childbearing at a young age, often a result of child marraige, when a girl’s body is not physically mature enough to deliver without complications, can also lead to devastating consequences.

Complications during pregnancy and childbirth represent the number one killer of girls ages 15-19 worldwide. And babies born to adolescent mothers face a substantially higher risk of dying, with a higher likelihood of low birth weight, malnutrition and underdevelopment. Young mothers are far less likely to be in school, and therefore more likely to struggle economically.

Where around the world does child marriage happen?

Amina* was 15 when child marriage threatened to ruin her life. Her father lost his income during COVID-19 lockdown and the family struggled to survive. Amina’s father received a marriage proposal for her and he agreed as the money the family would receive would help solve their financial problems. However, Amina’s mother was furious and went to Save the Children for help. Together they persuaded Amina’s father to reject the marriage offer and to continue her education.

Child marriage is a global problem and is compounded by poverty.  Child marriage is a problem that cuts across countries, cultures, religions and ethnicities. Child brides can be found in every region in the world. Major factors that place a girl at risk of marriage include poverty, especially in rural areas, as well as weak laws and enforcement, the perception that marriage will provide “protection,” customs or religious laws, and unequal gender norms.

In Africa, an estimated 12 million girls are still married each year . Despite worldwide progress in reducing child marriage and pregnancy, these are the countries with the highest child marriage rates:  Niger , Central African Republic,  Mali ,  Mozambique , and  South Sudan .

Why do child marriage rates rise during conflict?

Kadidia*, 14, and her parents were determined that the violence sweeping Africa’s Sahel region – including her homeland Mali – wasn’t going to end her chances of completing her education.

Conflict increases the inequalities that make girls vulnerable to child marriage – and its consequences. Families may arrange marriages for girls, believing marriage will protect their daughters from violence by strangers or armed groups, as well as to ease financial burdens on the family.

For example, child marriage rates have risen in war-ravaged Yemen , one of the few countries in the world without a legal minimum age for marriage. Now more than two-thirds of Yemen’s girls are married before age 18, compared to half before the conflict escalated.

Child marriage is also a growing concern among refugee children, including those from Myanmar and the Central African Republic.

How is Save the Children is a world leader in ending child marriage?

Rizwana’s leadership skills led her to being selected as a Save the Children Youth Champion, and through the additional support she has received through the Youth Champion program, she has continued to advocate for children’s education, the end of child marriage, and financial independence for vulnerable children and youth.

Thanks to compassionate supporters like you, Save the Children has championed equal rights for every child for over 100 years. We helped reduce child marriage worldwide by nearly one-third since 1990 – that’s tens of millions more girls empowered to stay in school or transition to work, and make marriage and motherhood decisions for themselves.

Save the Children puts gender equality at the heart of all we do. Every day, right from the start, we work to empower girls to stay in school, delay marriage and acquire the life and livelihood skills needed to successfully transition to adulthood. We work with girls and boys, families, communities and countries to change harmful gender norms and laws. Plus we empower girls to speak up, lead and succeed. We are the leading advocate for U.S. investment in girls’ leadership around the world.

In addition, Save the Children is proud to be the first nonprofit to be Gender Fair-certified for our commitment to advancing gender equality and empowering the world’s girls.

When you support Save the Children – whether it’s by donating, advocating or participating in an event challenge – you’re helping bridge the gap between the challenges girls face, like child marriage, and the futures they deserve. You’re helping ensure all children have equal opportunities to grow up healthy, educated and safe.  

Together, we can change children’s lives – ultimately, transforming the future we all share.

**Sources: Unless otherwise noted, facts and statistics have been sourced from Save the Children’s program and monitoring and evaluation experts, as well as published reports , including our gender equality reports . 

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Essay on Child Marriage for Students in English [Easy Words*]

January 16, 2021 by Sandeep

Essay on Child Marriage: A banned social practice in India where young girls below adolescent age are married off to older men with or without their consent is called child marriage. India has set the record for the 14th highest rate of child marriages globally. Rajasthan, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka are child marriage hotspots in the country. Poverty, social customs and traditions are the main reasons for the existence of child marriages even today.

Essay on Child Marriage 500 Words in English

Below we have provided Child Marriage Essay in English, suitable for class 6, 7, 8, 9 & 10.

Child marriage is a marriage that takes place either between two children or an adult and a child. In most cases, the adult is a man, and the child is a small girl. Child marriage was common throughout history, but it is still prevalent in developing countries. In a survey, it was found that in countries like Niger and Bangladesh, around 20 percent of the girls under the age of 15 are married. The legal age for marriage in India for women is 18, and for men, it is 21. Many organisations like UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Funds) and CRY (Child Rights and You) are working towards preventing child marriage.

Causes of Child Marriage

Child marriage is sometimes simply followed as a tradition. People follow the practice just because it has been going on from generations in their community. In many countries, there still exists prominent gender inequality. Girls are considered a burden on their family. They are bounded by patriarchal values. Child marriage is more widespread among people who live in poverty . They feel that by marrying their daughter young, they would have one less person to educate, feed and clothe.

Impact of Child Marriage

Child marriage can have serious negative repercussions on the physical as well as the mental health of a girl. It denies her fundamental rights that every person is entitled to include the right to education, the right to rest and leisure and the right to protection from sexual abuse and exploitation. When girls are married young, they are forced to take up household responsibilities. This deprives them of a chance to educate and empower themselves. They remain dependent on their male counterparts throughout their life.

The most physiologically and psychologically draining situation for a young girl is if she attains early motherhood. It is found that girls below the age of 15 who give birth are five times more likely to die during delivery than those who are above the age of 20. The bodies of these girls are not even fully developed and capable of giving birth at such a tender age. This puts the health of the mother and the child in grave danger.

There have been more studies on how child marriage affects young girls and very few on how it distresses young boys. However, two main adverse effects of child marriage on boys are related to education and poverty. As soon as boys get married, they are burdened with the responsibility of supporting their new family. Because of this, they stop their education and take up menial jobs that do not even pay well. This behaves like a vicious cycle of poverty.

Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006

Realising the plight of young brides and grooms, the government of India came out with The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act in the year 2006. Under this act, the legal age to get married is 21 for males and 18 for females. In case an adult is found marrying a girl below the age of 18, he will be severely punished. In cases where two minor children are forcibly married, the punishment will fall upon their parents or legal guardians. Punishment includes a fine up to Rs. 1 Lakh and imprisonment for up to 2 years.

Ways to Prevent Child Marriage

To stop this practice of forced marriage, not only girls, but even their parents should be made aware of the negative consequences that child marriage brings with it. The thinking of parents that a daughter is a burden on the family needs to be changed. This mindset has a very negative impact on the self-esteem of the girl. Girls should be encouraged to make themselves literate and independent. They should be given the opportunity of getting empowered and living life on their own terms.

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• Open access
• Published: 14 February 2022

The health consequences of child marriage: a systematic review of the evidence

• Suiqiong Fan 1 &
• Alissa Koski 1 , 2  

BMC Public Health volume  22 , Article number:  309 ( 2022 ) Cite this article

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Child marriage, defined as marriage before 18 years of age, is a violation of human rights and a marker of gender inequality. Growing attention to this issue on the global development agenda also reflects concerns that it may negatively impact health. We conducted a systematic review to synthesize existing research on the consequences of child marriage on health and to assess the risk of bias in this body of literature.

Methods and findings

We searched databases focused on biomedicine and global health for studies that estimated the effect of marrying before the age of 18 on any physical or mental health outcome or health behaviour. We identified 58 eligible articles, nearly all of which relied on cross-sectional data sources from sub-Saharan Africa or South Asia. The most studied health outcomes were indicators of fertility and fertility control, maternal health care, and intimate partner violence. All studies were at serious to critical risk of bias. Research consistently found that women who marry before the age of 18 begin having children at earlier ages and give birth to a larger number of children when compared to those who marry at 18 or later, but whether these outcomes were desired was not considered. Across studies, women who married as children were also consistently less likely to give birth in health care facilities or with assistance from skilled providers. Studies also uniformly concluded that child marriage increases the likelihood of experiencing physical violence from an intimate partner. However, research in many other domains, including use of contraception, unwanted pregnancy, and sexual violence came to divergent conclusions and challenge some common narratives regarding child marriage.

Conclusions

There are many reasons to be concerned about child marriage. However, evidence that child marriage causes the health outcomes described in this review is severely limited. There is more heterogeneity in the results of these studies than is often recognized. For these reasons, greater caution is warranted when discussing the potential impact of child marriage on health. We provide suggestions for avoiding common biases and improving the strength of the evidence on this subject.

Trial registration

The protocol of this systematic review was registered with PROSPERO (CRD42020182652) in May 2020.

Peer Review reports

Introduction

Marriage before the age of 18, often referred to as child marriage, is a violation of human rights that hinders educational attainment and literacy and may increase the likelihood of living in poverty in adulthood [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ]. Girls are far more likely to marry than boys, and these consequences contribute to existing gender gaps in educational outcomes in some settings [ 6 , 7 ]. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals list child marriage as an indicator of gender inequality and call for an end to the practice by the year 2030 [ 8 ]. Child marriage remains ongoing throughout much of the world despite intensifying efforts to eliminate it [ 9 ].

In addition to its consequences on education, growing attention to child marriage as a global development issue also seems to reflect increasing consideration of its potential impacts on population health. Multinational organizations including the World Bank, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) include the potential for harmful consequences on health among the foremost concerns regarding this practice [ 2 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 ]. These organizations highlight relationships between child marriage and early childbearing [ 11 , 12 , 13 ], obstetric complications [ 12 , 13 ], violence [ 2 , 12 ], and sexually transmitted infections [ 12 ], among other adverse outcomes.

We undertook this systematic review to synthesize the results of existing research regarding the impact of child marriage on the health of persons who marry before the age of 18. We evaluated the range of health outcomes that have been studied and the geographic distribution of those studies. We also assessed the risk of bias in individual studies and the likelihood that their results reflect causal relationships.

We searched three databases for literature on the relationship between child marriage and health: MEDLINE, Embase, and Ovid Global Health. These databases were chosen because they focus on biomedicine and human health. We aimed to include as broad a range of health outcomes as possible and focusing our search within these databases allowed us to avoid defining specific health outcomes within our search terms. Instead, we searched for studies of child marriage within these databases. This approach made our search terms more concise and the range of outcomes more inclusive. Specific search terms used for each database are included in Supplementary File 1 . We registered our protocol with PROSPERO (CRD42020182652) in May 2020 and conducted our database searches shortly afterward.

We also searched Google Scholar to identify relevant grey literature. Haddaway et al. [ 14 ] found that the majority of grey literature tends to appear within the first 200 citations returned by Google Scholar and recommend focusing on the first 200-300 records. We followed this recommendation and evaluated the first 300 records returned, as sorted by relevance. Search terms used in Google Scholar are also included in Supplementary File 1 . We reviewed the bibliographies of all included studies in an effort to identify any relevant citations not picked up through searches of the databases described above. The search strategy was developed with assistance from a research librarian at McGill University.

Citations returned from searches of all four databases were imported into EndNote X9 and duplicate citations removed [ 15 ]. We transferred all unique citations into Rayyan to facilitate the review process [ 16 ]. A single reviewer (SF) examined the title and abstract of each unique citation for eligibility according to pre-defined criteria specified in the registered protocol. Articles were brought forward for full-text review if they described etiologic studies that used quantitative methods to estimate the effect of child marriage on one or more health outcomes. We defined child marriage as formal or informal union prior to the age of 18. If the title and abstract did not specify the age thresholds used to define child marriage, they were brought forward for full-text review. For example, abstracts that referred to the effect of adolescent or teen marriage without explicitly stating how those exposures were defined were brought forward. Eligible health outcomes included physical or mental health disorders or symptoms of those disorders, as well as health behaviours. Eligible health behaviours included actions like smoking or dietary habits as well as health care seeking, such as prenatal care. We restricted our review to studies in which outcomes were measured at the individual level and to those that measured the effect of child marriage on the individuals married; studies that examined the effect of age at marriage on the offspring of the persons who married were excluded. Studies written in English, French or Chinese were eligible for inclusion.

We excluded studies that used solely qualitative methods and quantitative studies that relied exclusively on hypothesis testing to indicate differences between groups. For example, studies that used chi-squared tests to indicate whether the distribution of some characteristic differed between persons married before the age of 18 and those married at older ages were excluded, even if the authors seemed to interpret their results as causal, because such testing does not result in a comparative effect measure (e.g., a risk difference or an odds ratio) and does not account for potential biases. We also excluded studies in which persons who married before the age of 18 were incorporated into a larger aggregate age category, making the effect of child marriage unidentifiable. For example, comparisons of outcomes among persons who married between 15 and 19 years of age with those who married between 20 and 24 years of age were not eligible for inclusion. Conference presentations and abstracts were also excluded.

Both authors read the full text of each article brought forward from the title and abstract review and independently judged their eligibility according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria described above. Discrepancies were resolved through discussion. The following information was extracted from each included study: authors, title, year of publication, the language of publication, country/region in which the study was conducted, study design, study population, sample size, data sources, statistical methods, outcomes, and results.

Risk of bias assessment

We assessed the risk of bias within each included study using the Risk Of Bias In Non-randomised Studies - of Interventions (ROBINS-I) tool developed by members of the Cochrane Bias Methods Group and the Cochrane Non-Randomised Studies Methods Group [ 17 ]. ROBINS-I is designed to evaluate the risk of bias in non-randomized studies by considering how closely the study’s design and methods approximate an ideal randomized trial. To illustrate, in a hypothetical cluster-randomized trial to estimate the causal effect of child marriage on a specified health outcome, the treatment or intervention would be marriage before the age of 18 years. All children in a specific area (a region, a state, a community, etc.) would be randomized at a very young age to one of two treatment groups: those randomized to the intervention would marry at some point prior to their 18th birthdays (a = 1), while those randomized to the control group would marry on their 18th birthday or any later age (a = 0). All children would then be followed up over a period of time sufficient to observe the specified outcome of interest. In the ideal randomized trial, all persons would adhere to their assigned treatment (i.e., remain married) and would remain in the study until follow-up was complete. After the follow-up period, the probability of the outcome among those assigned to a = 1 would be compared with the same probability among those assigned to a = 0. Under these conditions, we could expect that there would be no differences between those children who married before the age of 18 and those who married afterward aside from age at marriage. As a result, if the probability of the outcome among those randomly assigned to marry as children differed from the probability among those randomly assigned to marry after their 18th birthdays, one could interpret that difference as the causal effect of child marriage [ 18 ].

Of course, a randomized trial like this would be unethical and could never actually be conducted. Researchers interested in the effects of child marriage on health must rely on non-randomized study designs to estimate the causal effect of interest. Without the benefit of randomization, it becomes challenging to identify the causal effect of child marriage because those who marry as children are different from those who marry at later ages in many ways. For example, girls who marry before the age of 18 come from poorer households and from communities with greater gender inequality, on average, compared to those who marry at later ages. These differences are likely to affect their health through causal pathways other than age at marriage, such as the experience of violence or limited ability to access education or health care. This means that a naïve comparison of health outcomes between those who marry as children and those who marry as adults is likely to mix up the consequences of age at marriage with the consequences of childhood poverty and gender inequality.

The ROBINS-I tool requires assessors to carefully consider the potential for multiple sources of bias including confounding, inappropriate selection of participants into the study (i.e., selection bias), mishandling of missing data, and problems with the measurement of exposures and outcomes (i.e., information bias). The potential for bias in each domain is assessed through a series of signaling questions and a summary judgement of low, moderate, serious, or critical risk of bias is then made within each domain. A cross-domain judgement of the risk of bias for the entire study is made based on the risk within each individual domain. Both authors independently assessed the risk of bias in each included study. Disagreements in any single domain or across domains were resolved by discussion.

We identified a set of variables likely to confound estimates of the effect of child marriage on a wide range of health outcomes in advance to facilitate assessment of bias in this domain. These variables and their relationships to child marriage and health, broadly defined, are illustrated in the simplified Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) in Fig.  1 . The prevalence of child marriage has fallen over time in many countries, which means that the likelihood of marrying before the age of 18 differs across birth cohorts [ 6 , 19 ]. As discussed above, childhood socioeconomic conditions and gender inequality may lead to child marriage. They may also influence health later in life through a variety of causal pathways. We also considered spousal characteristics a source of confounding because the presence of an available spouse may drive child marriage. For example, a potential husband willing to pay a bride price for a young wife may motivate a family to marry a girl child. The same characteristics of the spouse that may motivate the marriage, such as his age, wealth, and attitudes regarding gender equity, may influence the married child’s health later in life through mechanisms like controlling behaviour. In studies that use pooled data from across multiple regions or countries, it is also important to control for confounding by country/regional-level variables that affect both the probability of child marriage and health. The DAG also illustrates our assumption that the effects of child marriage on health are often mediated through educational attainment and socioeconomic conditions after marriage.

Directed acyclic graph illustrating assumed causal relationships between child marriage and a wide range of health outcomes

We synthesized results narratively. Included studies considered a wide range of health outcomes, as intended given our search strategy. We found it most intuitive and pragmatic to synthesize results within broad outcome categories, such as the effects of child marriage on contraceptive use, on maternal health care, and on mental health. These categories emerged from the data and were not pre-specified. Meta-analyses were not conducted because the studies examined a wide range of health outcomes that were measured in different ways. The serious risk of bias in all included studies, discussed below, also made quantitative synthesis inappropriate.

Our search strategy returned a total of 2767 unique records from MEDLINE, Embase, Ovid Global Health and Google Scholar, as shown in Fig.  2 . After title and abstracting screening, the full text of 126 articles was reviewed. Fifty-six of these studies met our inclusion criteria and two additional eligible studies were identified through citation tracking, for a total of 58 included articles.

PRISMA flow diagram illustrating the process used to identify eligible studies

Selected characteristics of all 58 studies included in our review are presented in Table  1 . These studies were published between 1989 and 2020 but the vast majority ( n  = 55, 95%) were published in 2010 or later and more than half ( n  = 31, 53%) were published between 2016 and 2020, which reflects the relatively recent rise of child marriage on global health and development agendas. Included studies were based in 70 countries across the globe, as illustrated in Fig.  3 . Nearly all studies, 57 of 58, were based in low- and middle-income countries according to World Bank classifications [ 20 ]; the single exception was a study based in the United States [ 21 ]. The geographic distribution of studies included in our review was heavily focused in South Asia ( n  = 30, 52%) and Sub-Saharan Africa ( n  = 27, 47%), which is perhaps unsurprising given that countries in these regions have some of the highest rates of child marriage in the world [ 9 ]. However, more than half of the studies included in our review were based in just three countries: India ( n  = 13), Bangladesh ( n  = 8) and Ethiopia ( n  = 11). Studies from regions other than South Asia or Sub-Saharan Africa were nearly all included in a handful of studies that analyzed survey data from multiple countries simultaneously [ 22 , 23 , 24 ].

Nearly all included studies, 55 of 58 (95%), were based on the analysis of cross-sectional survey data. More than half ( n  = 34, 59%) relied on data from a single source, the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), or their precursor, the World Fertility Surveys (WFS).

Geographic distribution of included studies

Bias assessment

All studies included in our review were determined to be at serious or critical risk of bias based on assessment using ROBINS-I. The summary risk of bias assessment for each study is listed in Table  1 ; risk of bias within each ROBINS-I domain in each study is detailed in Supplementary File 2 . Confounding was the most prevalent concern. Every study was deemed to be at serious to critical risk of bias in this domain, most often because of failure to account for important sources of confounding and inappropriate adjustment for variables affected by age at marriage that are on the causal pathway. Cross-sectional surveys like the DHS often do not collect information necessary to control for confounding. Failure to control for major sources of confounding like childhood poverty and gender inequality may result in overestimation of the harmful effects of child marriage. The second common source of bias was adjustment for variables measured after marriage that are likely on the causal pathway between age at marriage and the health outcomes being studied. To illustrate, the authors of many studies included in this review acknowledged that age at marriage may dictate how long a girl stays in school and that her educational attainment may subsequently influence a wide range of health outcomes. Unfortunately, they then adjusted for educational attainment in regression analyses. This will very likely result in biased estimates because educational attainment was measured after marriage and is more likely to be a mediator than a confounder (Fig.  1 ) [ 79 , 80 ]. Adjusting for it may remove some of the effect of child marriage on health and lead to underestimates of effect. Given that these two issues may bias results in different directions, predicting the net direction of confounding within studies is challenging. Other sources of bias also affected many of the studies in this review, including selection and measurement biases. Few authors discussed the potential influence of bias on their estimates or their conclusions.

The health consequences of child marriage

Studies included in our review estimated the effect of child marriage on a variety of health outcomes. The most common outcomes were measures of reproductive health, such as fertility and fertility control, maternal health care utilization, intimate partner violence, mental health, and nutritional status. The following paragraphs synthesize the literature in each of these categories. In light of the serious risk of bias in all included studies, we interpreted these results with a high degree of caution. We assessed the direction of effect measures, meaning whether the study found that child marriage increased or decreased the probability of experiencing the outcome, and the consistency of directionality across studies within each outcome category. We also assessed the precision of effect measures by evaluating the width of confidence intervals surrounding those measures. We did not interpret the magnitude of the effect estimates from individual studies due to the risk of bias.

The effect of child marriage on the number and timing of births

Eleven studies estimated the effect of child marriage on the number of children born, though this outcome was not consistently measured. Some studies estimated the effect of child marriage on the odds of having given birth to any children [ 34 , 50 , 63 ], the odds of having three or more children [ 24 , 46 , 50 , 63 , 75 ], four or more children [ 34 ], five or more children [ 37 , 69 ], or a continuous measure of the total number of children ever born [ 24 , 25 , 30 , 46 , 54 ]. The age ranges of the people included in these studies also differed, leading to variation in the time frame over which these births could have occurred. Child marriage was correlated with higher fertility in nearly all studies regardless of how the outcome was defined. The only exception was a study from Ethiopia that found no effect [ 30 ]. Ten of these studies focused on fertility exclusively among women. Misunas et al. [ 24 ] focused on men and came to similar conclusions: child marriage increased the odds that men aged 20-29 had fathered three or more children and increased the average number of children fathered by the ages of 40-49 [ 24 ].

A second commonly examined outcome was the likelihood of giving birth within the first year of marriage. Four studies based on data from South Asia [ 39 , 46 , 50 , 63 ] and one study based on pooled data from multiple countries in Africa [ 75 ] examined this outcome. Three of these studies [ 46 , 50 , 75 ] reported that marriage before the age of 18 decreased the odds of giving birth within the first year of marriage. The remaining two [ 39 , 63 ] did not find any evidence of a relationship between child marriage and this outcome.

We also identified five studies that estimated the effect of child marriage on the likelihood of giving birth before a specified age, often referred to as early, teen, or adolescent pregnancy [ 23 , 26 , 31 , 32 , 34 ]. Three of these studies found that child marriage increased the odds of giving birth before the age of 20 [ 26 , 31 , 32 ], the other two reported that child marriage increased the odds of giving birth before the age of 18 [ 23 , 34 ]. Two studies also estimated the effect of child marriage on mean age at first birth and found that those who married before the age of 18 gave birth for the first time at younger ages, on average, than those who married at older ages [ 32 , 46 ].

Collectively, this evidence indicates that women who marry as children often begin having children of their own at earlier ages when compared to their peers who marry after their 18th birthdays, and that they tend to have a larger number of children over their lifetimes. This is not surprising, given that marriage changes sexual behavior in ways that increase the risk of pregnancy. Essentially, girls who marry at earlier ages spend a longer time at risk of pregnancy than those who marry later.

The effect of child marriage on birth intervals

The World Health Organization recommends an interval of at least 24 months between a live birth and a subsequent pregnancy to reduce the risk of poor maternal health outcomes [ 81 ]. Five studies included in our review estimated the effect of child marriage on the likelihood of repeated childbirths in less than two years [ 39 , 50 , 62 , 63 , 75 ]. All five used samples of women between the ages of 20 and 24 who were included in DHS. A sixth study based on a small cross-sectional sample of women aged 15-49 from Ethiopia estimated the effect on repeated childbirth in less than three years [ 27 ]. These studies came to different conclusions. Two studies by the same author reported that child marriage increased the odds of repeated childbirth within two years in India [ 62 , 63 ] but another study based on the same data source found that women who married as children were less likely to have two births within a two-year period than those who married at older ages [ 39 ]. There were also differences in the results of research from Pakistan: one study reported that child marriage made it more likely that women would have two births within two years [ 50 ] while another found no evidence that child marriage influenced this outcome [ 39 ]. Child marriage protected against short birth intervals in Nepal [ 39 ] and in an analysis of data from 34 African countries [ 75 ]. There was no evidence that child marriage influence the likelihood of short birth intervals in Bangladesh [ 39 ].

These results, which range from harmful to protective effects, indicate that child marriage is not clearly or consistently correlated with short birth intervals.

Child marriage, unwanted or mistimed pregnancy, and pregnancy termination

Seven studies estimated the effect of child marriage on the likelihood of experiencing a mistimed or unwanted pregnancy [ 39 , 46 , 47 , 50 , 62 , 63 , 75 ]. All seven were based on analyses of DHS data. The DHS typically asks women whether pregnancies were wanted at the time they occurred, wanted later (i.e., mistimed), or not wanted. Interestingly, six of the seven studies that examined this outcome reduced these categorical responses into a binary measure: women were categorized as having an unwanted pregnancy if they reported that they had a mistimed pregnancy or if they became pregnant when they did not want any more children [ 39 , 46 , 50 , 62 , 63 , 75 ]. The rationale for doing this was not explained in any of the studies. The remaining study [ 47 ] only categorized instances in which a woman became pregnant at a time when she did not want any more children as unwanted.

Estimates of the effect of child marriage on this outcome are mixed. A study from 34 countries in Africa reported that child marriage protected against mistimed/unwanted pregnancies [ 75 ]. Studies from India, Pakistan, and Nepal concluded that child marriage increased the odds of experiencing mistimed/unwanted pregnancy [ 39 , 50 ]. Three studies from Bangladesh came to different conclusions. One found no relationship between child marriage and this outcome [ 39 ] while another reported that child marriage increased the odds of mistimed/unwanted pregnancy [ 46 ]. The third used a different definition of the outcome and found that marriage before the age of 15 was positively associated with unwanted pregnancy (mistimed pregnancies were treated as wanted) but no evidence that marriage between the ages of 15 and 17 affected the likelihood of unwanted pregnancy [ 47 ].

Three of these studies also estimated the effect of child marriage on the likelihood of experiencing two or more mistimed or unwanted pregnancies [ 39 , 62 , 63 ]. Godha et al. reported a large effect of child marriage on having multiple mistimed/unwanted pregnancies in India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan but results were inconclusive in Nepal [ 39 ]. Two studies by the same author reported that child marriage increased the odds of having multiple mistimed/unwanted pregnancies in India [ 62 , 63 ].

We identified eight studies of the effect of child marriage on pregnancy outcomes [ 39 , 47 , 48 , 50 , 57 , 63 , 66 , 75 ]. Six of these relied on the DHS, which typically asks female respondents, “Have you ever had a pregnancy that miscarried, was aborted, or ended in a stillbirth?” [ 82 ]. The wording of this question makes it impossible to examine these outcomes separately. As a result, most studies based on the DHS used a composite outcome that grouped these three events despite differences in their intendedness. Five studies based on the DHS concluded that child marriage increased the odds of having a pregnancy end in either miscarriage, abortion, or stillbirth [ 39 , 48 , 50 , 63 , 75 ]. Exceptionally, the 2007 Bangladesh DHS asked a yes or no question regarding whether a woman had ever terminated a pregnancy. Using responses to this question, Kamal reported that marriage before the age of 15 was correlated with higher odds of termination but no evidence that marriage between 15 and 17 years of age influenced this outcome [ 47 ].

Two studies from India used other cross-sectional data sources and defined their outcomes differently. Santhya et al. used a combined outcome of miscarriage and stillbirth and found that child marriage increased the likelihood of experiencing either of these birth outcomes. [ 66 ]. Paul considered stillbirth and miscarriage separately. Marriage before the age of 15 increased the odds of stillbirth and miscarriage, but marriage between the ages of 15-17 was no less risky in this regard than marriage at 18 or later [ 57 ].

Child marriage and contraceptive use

Fifteen of the studies included in our review estimated the effect of child marriage on various aspects of contraceptive use [ 23 , 24 , 32 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 43 , 46 , 53 , 56 , 62 , 63 , 65 , 66 , 75 ]. All were based on cross-sectional data and thirteen used data from the DHS.

Of these fifteen studies, eight estimated the effect of child marriage on the likelihood that women were using contraception at the time the surveys were conducted [ 32 , 39 , 40 , 46 , 53 , 62 , 63 , 65 ]. As with other outcomes, results were mixed. Child marriage reportedly increased the likelihood of using modern contraception in India and Bangladesh [ 39 ]. Results from Pakistan and Nepal indicate that the same may be true in those countries but the estimates were imprecise [ 39 ]. A second study from Nepal concluded that child marriage led to lower odds of using modern contraception [ 65 ]. The two studies from Nepal used different samples of women, which may partially explain the differences in their results. A study based on pooled data from 18 African countries found that child marriage was correlated with a lower likelihood of using modern contraception [ 53 ]. However, results varied markedly between countries and across geographic regions; in some, child marriage appeared to increase the likelihood of using modern contraception [ 53 ]. In Ghana, de Groot et al. found that child marriage was not correlated with the odds of using any form of contraception or with the use of modern contraceptives [ 32 ].

Two other studies investigated the effect of child marriage on the use of any method of contraception, including those not classified as modern [ 40 , 46 ]. Marriage prior to the age of 15 led to lower odds of contraceptive use in Rwanda, but there was no indication that those who married between 15 and 17 years of age were any more or less likely to use contraception than those who married at older ages [ 40 ]. In Bangladesh, women who married as children were more likely to be using some form of contraception at the time of the survey than those who married at the age of 18 or older [ 46 ]. In yet another iteration of this outcome, Yaya [ 75 ] reported that women who married as children were more likely to have ever used modern contraception. A single study estimated the effect of child marriage among men on the likelihood that they were using modern contraception [ 24 ]. In five of ten countries studied, child marriage was not related to modern contraceptive use. In two (Honduras and Nepal), child marriage seemed to slightly increase the odds of contraceptive use, but it decreased the likelihood in Madagascar [ 24 ].

A second outcome that has received particular focus is whether a woman used contraception before her first pregnancy. All four studies that examined the effect of child marriage on this outcome were based on data from South Asia [ 39 , 56 , 63 , 66 ] and concluded that marrying as a child decreased the likelihood that a woman used contraception prior to her first pregnancy [ 39 , 56 , 63 , 66 ]. The authors of these studies frequently interpreted their results as an indicator of uncontrolled fertility that may place girls and their children at risk of poor health outcomes [ 39 , 56 , 63 ]. However, this relationship is more challenging to interpret because the outcome variables used did not capture whether pregnancies were desired shortly after marriage or the outcomes of those pregnancies.

Four studies estimated the impact of child marriage on the likelihood that a woman had an unmet need for contraception [ 23 , 32 , 41 , 43 ]. This outcome was conceptually defined as a woman who is sexually active but not using contraception and who reports a desire to delay the next birth (a need for spacing), have no more births (a need for limiting), or a combination of the two. Once again, conclusions differ between studies. Using pooled DHS data from 47 countries, Kidman and Heymann found that marrying as a child increased the likelihood that women had an unmet need for contraception to either space or limit births [ 23 ]. An analysis of DHS data from Ethiopia found that women who married as children were less likely to have an unmet need for spacing and less likely to have an unmet need for limiting births compared to women who married at older ages [ 41 ]. In Zambia, child marriage was correlated with a greater unmet need for spacing and for limiting [ 43 ]. In Ghana, de Groot et al. found that child marriage was not correlated with an unmet need for limiting [ 32 ]. These studies all used different samples, which may partially explain the differences in their results.

Child marriage and use of maternal health care

Nine of the studies included in our review estimated the effect of child marriage on the use of health care during pregnancy, at the time of delivery, and during the post-partum period, which we collectively refer to as maternal health care [ 33 , 39 , 49 , 53 , 58 , 62 , 66 , 67 , 74 ].

Studies of prenatal care defined their outcomes as the receipt of at least one prenatal checkup [ 49 , 62 ], the receipt of four or more prenatal checkups [ 49 , 58 , 67 ], or a count of the total number of prenatal checkups received [ 39 , 53 ]. Once again, results within countries come to different conclusions. In Nepal, one study found that women who married as children were less likely to receive four or more prenatal checkups [ 67 ] while another found no evidence that child marriage influenced this outcome [ 39 ]. A study from India found no indication that child marriage affected prenatal care [ 39 ] but two others concluded that child marriage decreased the likelihood of receiving at least one checkup and of receiving at least four checkups [ 58 , 62 ]. In one study from Pakistan, women who married as children were less likely to receive any prenatal care than those who married at older ages, but there was no difference in the likelihood of receiving four or more checkups [ 49 ]. A separate study from the same country reported that child marriage had no effect on the number of prenatal care checkups [ 39 ]. The effect of child marriage on the number of prenatal care visits varied between geographic regions in Africa. In some, child marriage appeared correlated with a decrease the number of visits while in others there was no effect [ 53 ].

Compared to other outcomes, the results of studies that estimated the impact of child marriage on the likelihood of delivering in a health care facility were remarkably consistent. Across geographic locations, all seven studies that examined this outcome concluded that child marriage reduced the likelihood of delivery in a health care facility [ 39 , 49 , 53 , 58 , 66 , 67 , 74 ]. Six of the same studies also found that women who married as children were less likely to have a skilled health care provider present during delivery [ 39 , 49 , 53 , 58 , 67 , 74 ].

Only two studies considered post-natal care [ 58 , 67 ]. One reported that child marriage led to lower likelihood of a post-natal checkup within 42 days of delivery in India [ 66 ] while the other found a lower likelihood of a checkup within 24 h of delivery in Nepal [ 75 ].

Child marriage and intimate partner violence

Sixteen studies estimated the effect of child marriage on the likelihood of experiencing intimate partner violence [ 22 , 23 , 29 , 35 , 38 , 42 , 51 , 53 , 55 , 60 , 62 , 64 , 66 , 70 , 71 , 77 ]. Fifteen of these studies were based on cross-sectional data [ 22 , 23 , 29 , 35 , 38 , 42 , 51 , 53 , 55 , 60 , 62 , 64 , 66 , 70 , 71 ] and eight (50%) were based on the DHS [ 22 , 23 , 51 , 53 , 60 , 62 , 64 , 70 ]. The DHS measures intimate partner violence by asking female respondents a series of questions regarding their experience of specific acts. For example, physical violence is assessed by asking women whether they have been slapped, kicked, or pushed, among other actions. Sexual violence is assessed by asking whether the respondent’s husband has forced her to have sex or perform sex acts when she did not want to. Emotional violence is measured by asking whether her spouse has humiliated or threatened her [ 83 ]. Studies based on data from sources other than the DHS tended to use the same or very similar questions to measure the experience of violence.

Physical violence was the most frequently examined outcome but was measured over different time frames across studies. Some estimated the likelihood of ever having experienced physical violence from a husband or partner while others considered only the year prior to the survey. Still, others focused on the 3 months prior to the survey [ 35 ], the 9 months between survey waves [ 77 ], or during pregnancy [ 38 ]. Regardless of the time period during which violence was measured, the conclusions of these studies were fairly consistent: nearly all reported that marrying as a child increased the likelihood of experiencing physical violence [ 22 , 38 , 51 , 55 , 60 , 64 , 66 , 71 , 77 ]. A study from Ethiopia found no indication that child marriage had an effect on this outcome but it considered a relatively short time period of 3 months [ 35 ].

Estimates of the effect of child marriage on the experience of sexual violence were much less consistent. Two studies from India came to conflicting conclusions. Raj et al. found that child marriage did not increase the likelihood of experiencing sexual violence at any point or in the year prior to the 2005-06 National Family Health Survey [ 64 ]. However, a study by Santhya et al. based on survey data collected from five Indian states between 2006 and 2008 found that child marriage did increase the likelihood of ever experiencing sexual violence [ 66 ]. Studies from Bangladesh and Ghana reported that women who married as children were no more or less likely to experience sexual violence than those who married at later ages [ 60 , 71 ]. Two studies that pooled DHS data across multiple countries also found mixed results [ 22 , 53 ]. Olamijuwon used data from 18 African countries and found that child marriage increased the odds of experiencing sexual violence in Central, East, and Southern Africa, but there was no evidence of a statistical relationship in West Africa [ 53 ]. Kidman used DHS data from 34 countries across the globe and reported that child marriage seemed to increase the odds of experiencing sexual violence in the year prior to the surveys in all included geographic regions except Europe and Central Asia [ 22 ]. Erulkar found that women who married as children in Ethiopia were more likely to report that their first sexual experience was forced [ 35 ].

Only two studies, one from Pakistan and one from Ghana, considered emotional violence as a stand-alone outcome. Both concluded the child marriage led to an increase in the likelihood of ever experiencing emotional violence from an intimate partner [ 51 , 71 ].

Five studies considered only combined outcomes that mixed indicators of physical and sexual violence [ 62 , 70 ], or physical, sexual, and emotional violence [ 23 , 29 , 42 ]. All of these found that child marriage was associated with increased reporting of these composite measures of violence, but some results were sensitive to the sample used and were inconsistent across locations [ 70 ]. Hong Le et al. considered whether child marriage affected the likelihood of violence among boys but was underpowered to detect any effect [ 42 ].

Child marriage and mental health

Five of the studies included in our review estimated the effect of child marriage on various aspects of mental health. These studies relied on cross-sectional data collected from Ghana, Iran, Ethiopia, Niger and the United States [ 21 , 32 , 36 , 44 , 45 ]. Women in the United States who married before the age of 18 were more likely to report experiencing a wide range of mood, anxiety, and other psychiatric disorders in adulthood when compared to those who married at later ages [ 21 ]. The authors of a small study from a single county in Iran found that women who married as children reported more depressive symptoms than those who married at the age of 18 or older [ 36 ]. John, Edmeades, and Murithi examined the relationship between child marriage and multiple domains of psychological well-being in Niger and Ethiopia [ 44 ]. The authors found that marriage before the age of 16 was correlated with poorer overall psychological well-being, but no evidence that marriage between the ages of 16 and 17 was associated with poorer outcomes when compared to women who married at the age of 18 or later [ 44 ]. In Ghana, child marriage seemed to protect against measures of stress. The Ghanaian study also found no indication of differences in levels of social support between women who married before the age of 18 and those who married after their 18th birthdays, though these odds ratio estimates were very imprecise [ 32 ].

Child marriage and nutritional status

Six studies included in our review estimated the effect of child marriage on indicators of nutritional status [ 28 , 34 , 52 , 61 , 76 , 78 ]. Four focused exclusively on pregnant women. Two studies from Ethiopia examined the relationship between child marriage and mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) [ 52 , 76 ]. One reported that pregnant women who married before the age of 18 were more likely to have an MUAC less than 22 cm, often interpreted as a marker of undernutrition [ 84 , 85 ], compared to those who married later on [ 52 ]. The other found that marrying before the age of 15 increased the likelihood of MUAC <22 cm but no evidence that marrying between the ages of 15 and 17 affected this outcome [ 76 ]. A third study from Ethiopia reported that child marriage led to an increase in the prevalence of Vitamin A deficiency among pregnant or recently post-partum women [ 28 ].

Two other studies focused on women who were not pregnant and used body mass index (BMI) as the indicator of nutritional status [ 34 , 78 ]. Their results diverge. Yusuf et al. found that women in Nigeria who married as children were more likely to have a BMI less than 18.5, frequently interpreted as underweight among adults. However, in a study of 35 African countries, Efevbera et al. reported that child marriage was protective against being underweight (BMI<18.5) [ 44 ]. Interestingly, the authors of these studies offered plausible explanations for effects in either direction. Efevbera et al. hypothesize that girls who marry as children may gain access to more plentiful food at an earlier age and that repeated pregnancies during adolescence might result in greater weight gain relative to those who marry at later ages [ 34 ]. In contrast, Nigatu et al. note that repeat pregnancies in quick succession may have a detrimental impact on cumulative nutritional status [ 52 ]. This suggests that the mechanisms through which age at marriage may affect subsequent nutritional status have not been thoroughly considered.

Other health consequences of child marriage

A few of the studies included in our review examined outcomes other than those discussed above. We note them briefly here. A case-control study from India reported that women diagnosed with cervical cancer were more likely to have been married before the age of 18 [ 72 ]. A large, pooled analysis of DHS data from 47 countries reported that child marriage was associated with symptoms of sexually transmitted infections [ 23 ]. A small, cross-sectional study from a single Indian state found no evidence that child marriage led to an increase in the odds of obstetric fistula [ 68 ]. A third study from India examined the effect of child marriage on the odds of experiencing at least one complication during pregnancy, delivery, or within two months after delivery [ 57 ]. Marriage before the age of 15 seemed to increase the likelihood of pregnancy complications, but there was no evidence of an effect for marriage between 15 and 17 years. Child marriage was not associated with delivery complications, but was associated with postnatal complications [ 57 ]. A study from Ghana found no indication that child marriage influenced the likelihood of self-reported poor health, of being ill in the two weeks prior to the survey, or of having a health insurance card but did report that child marriage increased the odds of having difficulty with activities of daily living, such as bending or walking [ 32 ].

Our systematic review synthesized research on the health consequences of marrying before the age of 18. Studies almost uniformly found that women who married before the age of 18 began having children of their own at earlier ages and gave birth to more children over the course of their reproductive lives when compared to those who married at the age of 18 or later. Whether these outcomes, considered alone, are harmful to health is not clear. Though there are many reasons to be concerned about adolescent childbearing, none of the studies of the effect of child marriage on the timing of births considered whether those pregnancies were planned or desired or whether they resulted in obstetric complications or maternal morbidity or mortality [ 23 , 26 , 31 , 32 , 34 , 39 , 46 , 50 , 63 , 75 ]. Similarly, having multiple births, especially at short intervals, may increase the risk of obstetric complications and subsequent morbidity or mortality. However, studies that compared the number of children born to women who married before the age of 18 with the number born to those who married at later ages also did not measure whether those pregnancies were planned or whether they led to harm [ 24 , 25 , 30 , 34 , 37 , 46 , 50 , 54 , 63 , 69 , 75 ]. Rather, studies seemed to assume that these are negative outcomes without directly measuring intentions or harms.

A separate set of studies that estimated the effect of child marriage on the experience of mistimed or unwanted pregnancies came to divergent conclusions: some found that child marriage increased the likelihood of these outcomes but others found that child marriage protected against them or had no effect. Studies of whether child marriage affected the likelihood of obstetric complications, miscarriage or stillbirth did not consider maternal age when those events occurred [ 39 , 47 , 48 , 50 , 57 , 63 , 66 , 75 ]. Moreover, the fact that child marriage corresponds with a larger number of pregnancies means that girls who married prior to the age of 18 had more opportunities to experience these events compared to those who married later; this was not discussed in any of the studies we identified.

The results of studies in other outcome domains are very mixed and challenge some common narratives regarding child marriage. To illustrate, studies included in this review came to conflicting conclusions regarding whether child marriage increases or decreases the use of modern contraception, the likelihood of giving birth within the first year of marriage, and the likelihood of repeated childbirth within two years. Conclusions regarding mistimed and unwanted pregnancies were also mixed, as noted above. Collectively, these results suggest that child marriage is not uniformly characterized by an inability to control the number or timing of births and suggests that a more cautious approach to discussions of agency within these marriages is warranted, at least regarding fertility and fertility control.

Across studies, women who married as children were less likely to give birth in a health care facility or with assistance from a skilled health care provider. These findings raise concerns about access to emergency obstetric care and subsequent birth outcomes for both mother and child. However, we found only one study that estimated the effect of child marriage on the likelihood of complications during pregnancy, delivery, and the postpartum period [ 57 ] and consideration of the consequences for the infants born was beyond the scope of this review. This statistical relationship could be confounded by lack of access due to geographic distance. Child marriage is more common in rural areas, where health care facilities and skilled health care providers may be more spread out. It may also be a function of gender inequality, which may manifest as an inability to seek care without permission. Future research should consider the potential for confounding by these and other variables and investigate whether place modifies this relationship.

Child marriage could plausibly affect many aspects of maternal and reproductive health through complex causal pathways. However, most of the studies included in our review did not discuss causal mechanisms in detail, which may have hindered their ability to identify and account for various sources of bias. More thorough consideration and discussion of these mechanisms would strengthen the theoretical underpinnings of this body of literature and help mitigate biases. For example, use of Directed Acyclic Graphs to illustrate assumed causal relationships would help to clarify the causal pathways being studied and identify sources of bias [ 86 ].

The effects of child marriage among boys have been almost entirely overlooked. Only 2 of the 58 studies included in this review considered boys or men and one of them was underpowered to generate informative estimates [ 42 ]. This intense focus on child marriage among girls reflects the gendered nature of the practice. However, a substantial proportion of boys also marry before the age of 18 in some countries [ 7 , 24 ] and further inquiry into the health consequences among boys is warranted.

The geographic distribution of research on child marriage and health is highly skewed. The focus on South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa may be justified since these regions have some of the highest rates of child marriage in the world. However, it is unclear why just three countries, India, Bangladesh, and Ethiopia, have received such focused attention while other countries in these regions have received very little. Child marriage is certainly ongoing in many other regions of the world that have received little or no research attention, including high-income countries [ 9 , 87 , 88 ].

The geographic distribution of these studies and the range of outcomes considered is clearly reflective of heavy reliance on the DHS. The DHS is appealing because it collects information on age at marriage that is comparable across settings and over time, data are readily accessible and of high quality, and samples are typically nationally representative. However, defaulting to this data source may also have restricted the range of outcomes studied. The DHS focuses primarily on reproductive health and our review included many studies of the effect of child marriage on fertility, contraceptive use, and intimate partner violence. Far less attention has been paid to other potential harms of child marriage that are not included in the surveys, such as indicators of mental health. Importantly, the DHS does not collect information on some of the strongest confounders of many relationships between child marriage and health, including childhood socioeconomic conditions and measures of gender equality. Other data sources will be necessary to increase the geographic scope of this body of research and to overcome some of the limitations inherent in the use of cross-sectional data to estimate causal effects.

All studies included in our review were at serious to critical risk of bias. Quantification of the net magnitude of different biases on the results of each study would have made the project untenable. Considering pervasive bias, we avoided interpreting the magnitude of reported estimates from individual studies and instead took only the directionality of the estimates at face value. This allowed us to assess the (in)consistency of conclusions within domains of health. However, it is entirely possible that bias could lead to a reversal of effects, i.e., estimating a positive effect when the true effect is negative or vice versa. The bias in these studies means that it is unclear whether any of the relationships described are causal.

Nearly all studies included in our review relied on cross-sectional data. There are severe limitations to using cross-sectional research designs to estimate causal effects, and more rigorous designs are needed to further our understanding of the consequences of child marriage. Quasi-experimental designs that more effectively mitigate confounding would strengthen this body of literature and have already been used to study the effect of child marriage on educational attainment and literacy. For example, Field and Ambrus and Sunder used age at menarche as an instrumental variable to study the effect of child marriage on these outcomes [ 3 , 4 ]. Encouragement trials that randomly assign exposure to interventions meant to prevent child marriage could also be used to estimate the effects of child marriage on health outcomes, though such trials are more resource intensive to conduct [ 89 ]. However, given that the DHS and other cross-sectional data sources will likely continue to be used to investigate these relationships, the use of quantitative bias analyses to examine how sensitive estimates are to various sources of bias would be an improvement [ 90 ].

There are several limitations to this systematic review. First, to capture as wide a range of health outcomes as possible, we searched databases focused on human health and biomedicine. Relevant studies from other academic disciplines such as economics and sociology may have been missed using this approach. Second, our search was conducted in English and all included studies were published in English. Eligible studies published in other languages may have been missed, which could influence our conclusions regarding the geographic distribution of research. Finally, as noted in the introduction, child marriage may have consequences beyond the domain of health. We focused our systematic review on the health consequences of child marriage in response to growing rhetoric regarding child marriage as a population health concern. Rigorous systematic reviews of the effect of child marriage on educational and economic outcomes would be a valuable addition to the literature.

Availability of data and materials

The PROSPERO protocol and the data extraction form are publicly available through the Open Science Foundation at https://osf.io/32mu7/ .

Abbreviations

Body Mass Index

Cross-Sectional

Directed Acyclic Graph

Demographic and Health Surveys

Mid-Upper Arm Circumference

Risk Of Bias In Non-randomised Studies - of Interventions tool

Socio-Economic Status

United Nations Population Fund

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We thank Genevieve Gore at the McGill University Library for her assistance in developing the search terms used in this review.

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Fan, S., Koski, A. The health consequences of child marriage: a systematic review of the evidence. BMC Public Health 22 , 309 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-12707-x

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Child Marriage: Causes, Effects and Prevention - Essay Sample

Introduction.

Child marriage refers to the formal or informal marriage of a child under 18 years. Child marriage mostly occurs for young girls who are married off to an older man or boy. Girls who are forced into marriage at a younger age tend to be denied the right to access education because they are married off at school-going age. These young brides under 18 years tend to experience domestic violence. This paper will provide a discussion on child marriage, focusing on the causes, effects, and preventive measures.

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In India, there are high percentages of child marriage. Regardless of setting the legal marriage age at 18 years. New brides are anticipated to demonstrate their fertility after marriage through the reproduction of a male firstborn child. Child brides are physically immature, and being their early pregnancy, they are at risk of dying while giving birth or develop childbirth complications. According to UNICEF's report, India has the most significant number of child marriages in the world (Lal, 2995). Child marriage has been in existence in India for decades, where young girls are married off before they mature mentally and physically. In many instances, child marriages are worse for girls than for boys because boys are usually older than the girls.

Causes of Child Marriage

Causes of child marriage are propelled by first, gender inequality where male children are perceived as being superior to the girl child. Women who are married off at a younger age tend to experience domestic violence because of the age difference between the partners in which the man is older than the wife hence resulting in family misunderstanding (Mahato 698). Generally, families tend to discriminate boys and girls when giving them an opportunity of acquiring education. Girls are perceived as a burden to the family and someone else property because, in the end, they will get married. While the boy is viewed as prospective economic family assets. Therefore, early marriages of girls seem to be the solution to avoiding educational expenditure.

Secondly, in India, child marriage is driven by betrothal, where a girl is promised to be married before they are born to secure a future. At the puberty level, the guana ceremony takes place, and this children's bride is send off to their husbands to begin marriage life( Mahato, 700). The betrothals occur for young boys and girls who are not aware of the activities taking place; thus, plans for betrothals are made without their consent.

Thirdly, gender norms, and traditional customs leads to young girls being married off to older men. Girls tend to have a low value attached to them since society expects them to be hardworking and docile. Thus child marriage is used as a means of controlling female sexuality. Customary laws in India, which are religion-based acts as a barrier to curbing child marriage.

The other cause of child marriage in India is to minimizing marriage expenditure. According to the Indian culture, the girl’s family pays the dowry to the man’s family because of this reason. When the bridegroom is highly educated, the amount of dowry required is higher. Hence, early marriage is perceived as the only solution in the reduction of marriage expenses because when a girl is educated, the husband’s family claims that she will be a dictator in the house.

Also, high rates of child marriage in India is to avoid giving the female a share of the ancestral property. Females are supposed to be given a share of the ancestry property. Early marriages for girls heirs deprive them of an opportunity to ask for ancestry share because they will be having their own families (Mahato 701). Additionally, a high level of poverty. Female children and women are denied equivalent access to resources if the family has a low social status. Low-income families ought to use child marriage as a scapegoat for the female child burden.

Effects of Child Marriage

Child marriage has a lot of effects. Foremost, the inability to manage and planning families. Research has shown that women who are married at a younger age tend to bear more children. The young mothers are incapable of controlling their children based adequately on nutrition, healthcare, as well as management of the household (Raj 932). Secondly, Indian culture prioritizes male children; thus, whenever a girl is married and does not sire a male child as the firstborn, she will be forced to conceive until when she will give birth to a male child.

Thirdly, child marriage may result in exposure to HIV infection. Young women are prone to contracting HIV as compared to their male counterparts because her vagina is not well aligned with protective cells. Married adolescent girls are at the risk of getting infected because their older spouses may engage in extramarital sexual affairs with other women.

Preventive Measures

To curb child marriage world leaders, lawmakers, individuals as well as parents need to challenge to empower girls and question norms that positions boys as superior beings than girls. India is on the fight to curb early, child and forced marriages according to its vision of 2030, which targets 5.3 sustainable development goals. First, the government has used cash incentives like Dhan Laxmi scheme and programs for teenage empowerment to motivate change in behavior associated with child marriage.

Secondly, girls should be provided with equal opportunities to pursue their education and give them a chance to live fully independent lives after completing their studies (Ghosh 60). Thirdly, there is a need to establish and implement laws and policies which are against child marriages, and stringent measures should be put in place for those who are found involving themselves in child marriage. Fines and imprisonment are some of the steps that can be applied to those lawbreakers.

Also, to end child marriage, the community, as well as the parents, need to be educated on the importance of girl child in the society. Additionally, child marriage can be eliminated through the provision of economic support and incentives to families. Lastly, through empowering girls with support networks, information as well as skills.

In conclusion, child marriage is one of the problems facing India .regardless of stating the marriage age as 18 years, young girls and boys tend to be married off at the younger generation, and child marriage tends to affect mostly the girls. The causes of childbirth include poverty, denial of the right to share ancestry property, reduction in marriage expenditure, and avoiding female education expenses. The effects of child marriage include vulnerability to HIV infection, incapability of managing and planning the household, early pregnancy, and health complications as well as frequent giving birth in search of a male child. Child marriage can be prevented through the establishment and implementation of policies, empowering girls, offering incentives and economic support, providing essential services to the girls, and creating awareness of the effects of child marriage on the community and families.

Works Cited

Ghosh, Biswajit. "Child marriage and its prevention: Role of adolescent girls." Indian Journal of Development Research and Social Action 7.1-2 (2011): 49-62.

Lal, B. Suresh. "Child marriage in India: factors and problems." International Journal of Science and Research 4.4 (2015): 2993-2998.

Mahato, Santosh K. "Causes and consequences of child marriage: A perspective." International Journal of Scientific and Engineering Research 7.7 (2016): 697-702.

Raj, Anita. "When the mother is a child: the impact of child marriage on the health and human rights of girls." (2010): 931-935.

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Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Child Marriage — Child Marriage as a Violation of Human Rights

Child Marriage as a Violation of Human Rights

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Published: Sep 6, 2023

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The prevalence of child marriage, the root causes of child marriage, the consequences of child marriage, addressing child marriage.

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Child marriage in Canada: A systematic review

Michele zaman.

1 Master of Science in Public Health student, McGill University, Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Alissa Koski

2 Assistant Professor, McGill University Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health and the Institute for Health and Social Policy, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Associated Data

The data used for our results tables are all from our included articles and or publicly available data from Statistics Canada. Statistics Canada, 2016 Census of Population, Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 98-400-X2016028. Additionally, our search strategy for the systematic review is included as an appendix.

Child marriage, defined by the United Nations as marriage before the age of 18, is considered a violation of human rights with negative consequences for girls’ health. We systematically reviewed existing academic literature and news media to learn what is known about the frequency of child marriage in Canada and its effects on health. Approximately 1% of 15-19-year-olds in Canada were married or in common law unions in 2016. News reports document cases of child marriage among religious minority communities but no nationwide estimates of the frequency of marriage before the age of 18 were identified. Sources consistently show girls are more likely to marry as teens than boys. Information on married teens between 15 and 19 years of age suggests similarities in marriage patterns among this age group in Canada and child marriage practices globally. Further research is needed to measure Canada’s progress toward eliminating child marriage.

Introduction

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights defines child marriage as the formal or informal marriage of any person under the age of 18 [ 1 ]. The practice is widely considered a violation of human rights that harms the health and development of children, most often girls [ 1 ]. Over the past sixty years, numerous human rights instruments have addressed child marriage. The 1962 United Nations Convention on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age for Marriage and Registration of Marriages required member countries to establish a minimum age for marriage, though no explicit statement on what the minimum should be was made at that time [ 2 ]. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women states that the “marriage of a child shall have no legal effect” and reiterates the need for member countries to establish a minimum age for marriage, but again did not recommend a specific age [ 3 ]. A decade later, the Convention on the Rights of the Child defined a child as any person under the age of 18 and since then the proportion of women marrying before that age has been used as a quantifiable indicator of international development [ 4 ]. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, adopted in 2015, call for the elimination of child marriage by the year 2030 and estimates of the proportion of women who married before the age of 18 are included in annual reports of progress toward that goal [ 5 ].

Despite these efforts, child marriage continues across the globe and is associated with a range of negative health outcomes that have repercussions throughout the life course. Girls who marry before the age of 18 begin having children of their own at early ages. Research from Africa and South Asia shows that they have less control over their own fertility: they report having less access to contraception and more unwanted pregnancies, and give birth at shorter intervals when compared to girls who marry at later ages [ 6 , 7 , 8 ]. This may reflect limited agency to negotiate the frequency of sex or the use of contraception within these unions, particularly when there is a large age discrepancy and/or power imbalance between spouses [ 8 ]. These factors put them at elevated risk of obstetric complications, the leading cause of death among adolescent girls in low and middle-income countries [ 9 ]. Girls who marry before 18 years of age are also more likely to contract HIV and to experience domestic violence and mental health disorders [ 10 , 11 , 12 ]. Though the vast majority of attention to child marriage and its harms is focused on Africa and South Asia, the practice continues in wealthy countries as well [ 13 ]. Research on the consequences of early marriage in these contexts is scarce, but available evidence suggests that it remains harmful to health despite stronger public health infrastructure and health care systems. The children of adolescent mothers in the United States are more likely to be born pre-term, at low birth weights, and to die during the first 28 days after birth, even after controlling for socioeconomic factors that often confound this relationship [ 14 ]. American women who married before the age of 18 were also more likely to report experiencing substance abuse and mental health disorders as adults [ 15 ]. It is important to note that establishing whether child marriage actually causes these adverse events is challenging. It is possible that girls who marry as children differ from their peers who marry later with regard to other characteristics that may put them at risk of these outcomes. For example, growing up in poverty may place children at greater risk of marriage and at greater risk of mental health disorders in adolescence, independent of their marriage.

In addition to adverse effects on health, child marriage is also strongly associated with educational and economic outcomes. Across the globe, girls who marry before the age of 18 have less schooling than their peers who marry later [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 ] but the directionality of this relationship probably varies across contexts. Research from Bangladesh and Uganda shows that child marriage leads to early departure from school [ 16 , 18 ] However, in contexts where girls’ access to schooling is restricted as a result of poverty, physical proximity, or other factors, child marriage is unlikely to be a cause of low educational attainment and may instead be perceived as an alternative means of transitioning to adulthood [ 19 , 20 ]. Research from the United States shows that girls who married before the age of 16 were 31 percentage points more likely to live in poverty in adulthood when compared to girls who married at later ages [ 17 ].

Child marriage remains legal in many countries despite commitments to end the practice and consistent evidence that it is detrimental for health and well-being [ 21 ]. The Canadian Civil Marriage Act was updated in 2015 to prohibit marriage before the age of 16 years, but 16 and 17-year-olds can legally marry with parental consent [ 22 ]. Canadian law on this issue is at odds with the country’s efforts to end child marriage elsewhere in the world through foreign policy. Canada has co-sponsored United Nations resolutions to end child marriage and provides financial resources for this purpose through its Feminist International Assistance Policy [ 23 , 24 ]. Given the country’s efforts to address child marriage on a global stage, we believe it is important to apply the same definitions and metrics used in low and middle-income countries to domestic practices. We undertook this systematic review to learn what is already known about child marriages in the country, including motivations for the practice and its context, its consequences, and how frequently it occurs.

We conducted a systematic review of academic literature and media sources to identify any published information on the prevalence, motivations for, or consequences of early marriages that occurred within Canada. We searched three distinct databases (Scopus, ProQuest including Canadian Newsstream, and Google Scholar) for articles that referred to early, adolescent, teen, child or underage marriage, with key terms for Canadian provinces and territories. The detailed search terms were developed in consultation with a research librarian at McGill University and are included in the appendix. We conducted our searches in March 2019 and results were not restricted in terms of publication dates.

Searches of all three databases returned a total of 941 citations: 249 from Scopus, 514 from ProQuest and Canadian Newsstream, and 178 from Google Scholar ( Fig 1 ). A total of 128 duplicate citations were identified, leaving a total of 813 unique citations. The title and abstract (if available) of each unique citation was screened by a single reviewer (MZ) according to pre-defined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Citations were brought forward for full-text review if the title and abstract were written in English or French, if the article was published in an academic or professional society journal or a newspaper, and if they included qualitative or quantitative information on early marriages that occurred in Canada or case reports of early marriages. Citations were excluded at this stage if they referred to conference abstracts or blog posts, if they referred solely to early marriages that occurred outside of Canada or considered only marriages to persons aged 25 years and older. We extended the age cutoff for this review beyond 18 years in an effort to include any studies of early marriage in Canada, even if an age threshold other 18 years was used. If the precise age range of the marriages under consideration was not clear based on review of the title and abstract, for example, if the article referred to adolescent marriages without specifying an age range, the article was brought forward for full-text review.

Initial screening of titles and abstracts yielded 108 items for full-text review. Two reviewers (MZ and AK) read the full text of each of these articles and made independent decisions regarding their inclusion or exclusion based on the same criteria described above. We identified an additional 8 citations of potential relevance by manually searching the bibliographies of articles included in the full-text review and assessed these for eligibility as well. Discrepancies between the two reviewers were resolved through discussion. We were unable to find the full text of 3 of the news sources identified in our search despite the assistance of a research librarian at McGill University.

We identified a total of 27 articles that met our inclusion criteria. Fig 1 illustrates the process of our systematic review. Nearly all of these articles (n = 24) were newspaper reports of individual marriages or descriptive analyses of trends in the frequency of marriage among different age groups based on data collected by Statistics Canada. Only 2 studies were designed to estimate the effect of early marriage on specified outcomes and 1 estimated the effect of minimum wage increases on teen marriage rates. We discuss the limitations of each of these 3 studies in our results but we did not systematically quantify the extent of bias because the number of etiologic studies identified was so small. The presence or magnitude of publication bias could not be reliably assessed for the same reason.

Sixteen of the 27 articles included in our review were published in newspapers across Canada between 1983 and 2017 ( Table 1 ).

Nearly all of them are case reports of marriages that occurred among small religious groups in British Columbia and Quebec. Eight of the articles refer to the marriage of girls under the age of 18 among the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints community based in Bountiful, British Columbia. News reports on legal proceedings involving the community’s religious leaders drew attention to cases in which 15 and 16-year-old girls were wed. These reports included statements from women who testified that they were married before the age of 18 and describe court documents that attest to the marriages [ 25 , 28 , 30 ]. Five of the newspaper articles refer to a single legal case in Quebec in which the 52-year-old leader of a Christian religious group was alleged to have married a 10-year-old girl. The published reports indicate that the girl testified that she was molested by the man who claimed to be her husband [ 37 , 38 ]. Another article included a statement from a former member of a small Jewish group who claimed that he was married to a 15-year-old girl when he was 25 years of age and that the ceremony was arranged by the group’s leader [ 27 ].

In addition to news reports, we identified nine articles published in academic journals, a single report on child marriage in North America published by a non-profit organization [ 42 ], and results from the 2016 Canadian Census available online from Statistics Canada ( Table 1 ).

The information on early marriage contained in these articles is synthesized below. Our results are organized by estimates of the frequency of early marriage in Canada and the context of those marriages, followed by information on the motivations for early marriage and its consequences. We focus our discussion on the youngest age range available when sources presented relevant information for multiple age groups below the age of 25 (i.e. 15–19 and 20–24).

How common is early marriage in Canada and what are the characteristics of persons who marry early?

Analyses of Canadian vital statistics and census data provide information on how common early marriage has been at various points in time. An examination of historic marriage patterns in Canada reported that in the late 1800s, 33% of women and 13% of men between 20 and 24 years of age had ever been married. Those proportions rose to 60% among women and 31% among men in 1961, and then fell again to 35% and 18% in 1991 [ 46 ]. Wadhera and Strachan (1992) used vital statistics data to examine trends in marriage rates across Canada between 1921 and 1990. They reported gender-specific rates among 15-19-year-olds between 1951 and 1990 and show that marriage among persons in this age range has become rarer over time. Nationally, the rate of marriage among 15-19-year-old boys has declined steadily since 1971, from a high of 12.9 per 1000 in that year to 2.3 per 1000 in 1990. The rate of marriage among girls in this age range has been falling for a longer period of time, from a high of 71.5 per 1000 in 1956 to 10.6 per 1000 in 1990. The rate of marriage among teen girls was higher at all time points, and remained nearly 5 times higher in 1990. The observed decline in marriage rates among 15-19-year-olds over this period is consistent with the general trend toward delaying marriage in Canada, particularly among young women [ 48 ]. The same authors also published a detailed examination of marriage across Canada in 1991. Rates among 15-19-year-olds in 1991 do not appear to have changed substantially from those reported in 1990 [ 49 ].

More recently, the 2016 Canadian census recorded a total of 22,115 persons between 15 and 19 years of age who were married or in common law partnerships [ 43 ]. Using the total of 2,010,060 persons in that age range included in the census in that year as our denominator, we estimate that the prevalence of marriage, including common-law unions, among this age group was approximately 1.1% [ 43 ]. A breakdown of the number of marriages among 15-19-year-olds by province/territory and gender is also available, which permitted us to estimate the prevalence of early marriage, including common law unions, across the country. These results indicate that teens between 15 and 19 years of age residing in every province and territory were reported married or in common-law unions in 2016 ( Table 2 ). Prevalence estimates among girls ranged from 1.0% to 2.7% percent in nearly all provinces and territories. The prevalence was lower among boys in every province and territory and ranged from 0.4% to 1.1%. Prevalence estimates from Nunavut suggest markedly different marriage patterns in the territory: 10.8% of girls and 6.3% of boys between 15 and 19 years of age were reportedly married or in common-law unions ( Table 2 ). Similar results from earlier censuses may also be available, but novel analysis of trends over time is beyond the scope of this systematic review.

Source: Statistics Canada, 2016 Census of Population, Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 98-400-X2016028

These academic sources provide estimates of how common marriage is among aggregate age groups within the country but information on precise age at marriage was not presented. We are unable to determine how many of the teens between 15 and 19 years of age married when they were 15, 16 or 17 years old. News sources document cases in which individual 16 and 17-year old girls were married and the Calgary Herald reported that twenty-nine children below the age of 15 were married in Canada in 1982: 26 girls and 3 boys [ 40 ]. However, reports from small religious communities may not reflect broader trends in age at marriage and the Calgary Herald report reflects marriages that occurred over 35 years ago. Marriage before the age of 16 has been prohibited in Canada since 2015 [ 22 ].

Other sources provide limited insight into the context of early marriages in Canada. Gentleman and Park examined age differences between spouses captured in the 1991 census. The age difference between spouses when the wife was between 15 and 20 years old was larger than in any other age bracket: the median age difference was 3.9 years, nearly 2 years greater than the median difference in any other age range, and in 3.6% of these couples the husband was at least 15 years older than his wife, a larger percentage than in any other age category [ 47 ]. This indicates that the youngest brides tend to marry older men relative to those who marry later in life. Divorce rates were also higher among couples with a larger age difference. This is consistent with another study that showed some teen marriages in Canada were short-lived. Lapierre (1991) found that approximately 750 of every 100,000 married boys and 1000 of every 100,000 married girls between 15 and 19 years of age were granted divorces in 1990 [ 50 ].

Motivations for early marriage

Our results tell us little about the motivations for early marriage in Canada. News reports of early marriages among diverse religious communities suggest that religious beliefs may encourage early marriage, though the precise nature of these beliefs were not discussed in detail [ 26 , 27 , 28 ]. Statements from two women who married at 16 years of age in the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints community in Bountiful, British Columbia, indicated that their educational goals played a role in the timing of their marriages. According to those statements, leaders of the community would only permit women to further their education if they were married [ 26 , 28 ]. However, the motivations described in these individual cases that occurred among small and distinct communities may not represent those among the broader population.

Sen and Ariizumi showed that increases in the minimum wage across Canada between 1990 and 2005 were associated with increases in marriage rates and births among 15-19-year-olds, but the mechanisms through which changes to the minimum wage may influence these life events are unclear [ 44 ]. The authors hypothesize that a rising minimum wage may have reduced the opportunity cost of having a child, thereby increasing teen pregnancy rates that may have led to marriages, or that the potential for greater future earnings may have encouraged teen marriages. The provincial-level data used to generate these results severely limits the extent to which they can be used to understand individual-level motivations for marriage. Moreover, this relationship may differ for marriages before the age of 18, which are less common than those among 18 and 19-year-olds and unique in that they require parental consent.

Consequences of early marriage

Information on the consequences of early marriages in Canada is also limited. Grindstaff (1988) reported that women who married before the age of 20 and were 30 years of age at the time of the 1981 Canadian census had lower educational attainment, on average, when compared to their peers who married at later ages. More than half of women who married before 20 years of age had not completed secondary school. They were also more likely to be employed in the service-sector and reported lower income. Though the report by Grindstaff indicates strong associations between marrying as a teen and economic outcomes at the age of 30, no attempt was made to control for other characteristics that may influence age at marriage and these outcomes, which severely limits the strength of the conclusions that can be drawn. We cannot conclude that these results indicate that early marriage caused unintended early ends to education for these women; it is also possible that early marriage was perceived as an alternative pathway to adulthood for some who did not intend or desire to further their schooling. Case reports also indicate that limited educational opportunities following early marriage and the birth of children may lead to financial dependence upon a spouse, though women who participated in interviews with Morin (2017) expressed different opinions regarding whether this dependence was of concern to them.

Statements from two women who married at very young ages indicate that they experienced abuse within their marriages [ 33 , 38 ]. However, the exclusive focus of news reports on child marriage among religious minority communities may severely restrict the generalizability of the experiences highlighted. A single study based on a small cohort of persons who graduated from high school in Edmonton, Alberta in 1985 found that women who married before the age of 23 reported experiencing more depressive symptoms in their early 40s when compared to those who married at later ages [ 41 ]. However, fewer than half of the original cohort was included in the study, leading to concerns regarding selection bias, and the covariates included in the analyses were unlikely to limit confounding of the relationship between early marriage and mental illness.

Conclusions

Published results from historical studies and a recent census provide information on the frequency of marriage among teens between 15 and 19 years of age in Canada. The prevalence of marriage among this age group varies across the country but the reasons for that variation are unknown and have received little attention. In particular, the relatively high prevalence of marriage among teens in Nunavut warrants further investigation. Family formation patterns may differ in the territory, where more than 85% of the population identified as Indigenous in the 2016 census, relative to other parts of the country [ 52 ]. The severe housing shortage may also be a contributing factor. In 2016, more than half of Nunavummiut were living in social housing and overcrowding within social housing remains an urgent concern [ 53 ]. Young couples may marry or enter common law unions at early ages if marriage speeds access to adequate housing. Future research led by communities in Nunavut may shed light on why early marriage is more common there and whether early marriage is perceived as problematic among Nunavummiut.

Aggregation over a five-year age range in the census and in other academic studies prevented us from using this information to assess the frequency of marriage before the age of 18 in Canada. We found no published studies that included such estimates. Our results indicate that the marriage of persons under the age of 18 has received almost no direct attention outside of media reports on individual cases among religious minority communities. Academic reports on marital trends have not drawn particular attention to the earliest age categories nor do they suggest that there is reason for concern regarding those marriages, even when they document that the context of marriages among 15-19-year-olds differs from marriages among older persons [ 47 ]. This is curious given the country’s explicit attention to and concern regarding marriages before the age of 18 internationally and suggests that the same perception of early marriage as an indicator of gender equality and adolescent health is not being applied domestically.

Although marriage before the age of 18 has not been studied systematically in Canada, available information on marriages to 15-19-year-olds in the country indicate that these marriages follow patterns similar to those observed among children in other parts of the world. Strong evidence of the gendered nature of early marriage in Canada is consistent across sources and time periods: all of the nationwide estimates we identified, from the late 1800s through 2016, show that girls are more likely to be married at young ages than boys. We found no case reports of boys married before the age of 18 and the limited evidence of the potential harms of early marriage is also largely focused on women and girls [ 33 , 51 ]. Evidence from the 1990s also shows that married 15-19-year-old girls in Canada were wed to substantially older spouses relative to women who married at older ages [ 47 ]. This is consistent with evidence from low and middle-income countries and gives rise to concerns regarding the power dynamics within highly age-discrepant marriages [ 8 ].

The health-related consequences of early marriage have received very little attention in Canada and the existing evidence is too weak to draw conclusions. This is in stark contrast to literature on child marriage in other regions of the world, which often portrays the negative impact on girls’ health as one of the foremost reasons for concern regarding early marriage [ 6 , 7 , 10 , 12 , 54 ]. The reasons for this lack of attention are unclear but may stem from the perception that child marriage is something that only happens elsewhere or among small and culturally distinct populations within Canada. More than half of the articles we identified through this systematic review were news reports of child marriages that occurred among religious minority communities. The narrow focus of this media coverage may suggest to readers that the marriage of young girls in Canada occurs primarily among groups whose beliefs and practices may be far removed from the experience of most Canadians. However, estimates from other sources including the 2016 census indicate that early marriages occur nationwide and at larger scale. Focusing on religious minority communities may neglect the larger picture of child marriage in Canada.

Estimates of the incidence and prevalence of marriage among children under the age of 18 in Canada are needed so that the country can assess its own progress toward the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Aggregate marriage statistics among 15-19-year-olds fail to make a distinction between teen minors, who require parental permission to marry and whose autonomy is restricted in many other realms, and teens who are over the age of majority and considered legal adults. Disaggregation based on this importation social distinction would have been more informative in the case of marriage statistics and likely in many others. We take this opportunity to encourage thoughtful consideration of the use of aggregate statistics and to call for disaggregation when possible.

Transparent reporting on child marriage practices in Canada would acknowledge that it is a global issue and not restricted to certain regions of the world. Additional research on the motivations for and consequences of child marriage in Canada would also facilitate needed discussion regarding the discrepancy between domestic laws that continue to permit children under the age of 18 to wed and Canada’s international commitments to end the practice. Such a discourse may shed light on the remaining barriers to eliminating child marriage and strengthen the country’s efforts to improve gender equality and support the rights of women and girls both domestically and internationally.’

Supporting information

S1 checklist, funding statement.

Funding for this research was received by AK, she received the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), Insight Development Grant no. 430-2018-00481. More information on the insight development grant can be found here: https://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/funding-financement/programs-programmes/insight_development_grants-subventions_de_developpement_savoir-eng.aspx . The funders did not play any role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.

Data Availability

• PLoS One. 2020; 15(3): e0229676.

Decision Letter 0

13 Jan 2020

PONE-D-19-31231

Child Marriage in Canada: A Systematic Review

Dear Ms Zaman,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

ACADEMIC EDITOR:  This is a great paper and only requires a few small edits before it can be accepted. My feedback is provided below. Thank you for your submission.

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Additional Editor Comments:

This is a great paper! Clear in scope, well-written and the conclusions justified. It makes a very useful contribution to the literature on early marriage! Thank you for the opportunity to read and review your work.

The reviewers have a few minor concerns, which I agree with. I would like to see these points addressed before officially accepting the paper. This is all small potatoes stuff and should not take long to do.

I would add to this a general concern that you do need to be more explicit throughout - perhaps especially in your introduction - that demonstrated associations between early marriage and negative outcomes for girls/women may not always be because early marriage causes those negative outcomes. To make a parallel - the teen pregnancy literature has over time walked back from some of the early strong conclusions that teen marriage is an ultimate driver of poor wellbeing for young women, and recognized that teen pregnancy often is better understood as a product of low opportunity / lack of options. Similar shifts are afoot with the child marriage literature, especially in settings where it mainly takes place in late adolescence, and your framing would benefit from reflecting this - rather than reiterating stylized truths about the universal harms of child marriage.

Some relevant manuscripts which make these points:

- On teen pregnancy:

Furstenberg, F. (2016). Reconsidering teenage pregnancy and parenthood. Societies, 6(4), 33.

- On child marriage: Stark, L. (2018). Poverty, consent, and choice in early marriage: ethnographic perspectives from urban Tanzania. Marriage & Family Review, 54(6), 565-581.

- Schaffnit, S. B., Hassan, A., Urassa, M., & Lawson, D. W. (2019). Parent–offspring conflict unlikely to explain ‘child marriage’in northwestern Tanzania. Nature human behaviour, 3(4), 346.

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Reviewer #2: N/A

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Reviewer #1: This manuscript was clear, thoughtfully written and a pleasure to read. The research design was solid. I have a few comments aimed at improvement, however.

Line 35. The word 'controlled' here sounds a bit patronizing. Controlled by whom? This could be said in a different way.

Lines 46-47, it should be made clear that this is not necessarily a causal relationship, unless you state otherwise.

Lines 49-53. Same here, which causes which? A growing body of research is suggesting that a lack of affordable and decent quality education in fact leads to early marriage, or that they are co-causal.

Lines 177-178: This information about Canadian law should come earlier in the manuscript, at the beginning.

Line 185: This is one of your conclusions, please make sure it is clearly mentioned there.

Lines 206-209: This is interesting, and perhaps should be highlighted a bit more clearly in your text.

Line 209: I am not sure here what you mean by the word 'ecological'.

The 'Conclusion' section is for the most part very good and makes a useful contribution to the field, but I would ask the authors to expand on two points within it:

First, the high prevalence of early marriage among teens in Nunavut is quite eye-catching in the data section where it is reported. Do the authors not have any 'best guesses' about the reasons behind this? Surely some informed speculation could be ventured here to guide future researchers.

Second, the authors usefully note that aggregation within their data presents difficulties in drawing further conclusions. This could be the springboard for a recommendation for future research: that it should always be disaggregated by age (as well as socio-economic status and so forth). The problem of aggregation affects a broad range of disciplines within the social sciences, so it is always a useful reminder to other researchers to avoid it where possible.

Reviewer #2: This is a nicely written paper and clearly makes the case that more research is needed on early marriage in Canada. My one minor comment has to do with the introduction. I would like to see the causal link between early marriage and negative health related outcomes (paragraph 2) questioned or at least a short note suggesting that correlations could be due to selection effects rather than harmful consequences of early marriage per se.

I enjoyed the discussion. It was fair and clearly identified gaps in knowledge.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Laura Stark

Reviewer #2: No

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Author response to Decision Letter 0

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Decision Letter 1

12 Feb 2020

PONE-D-19-31231R1

Dear Dr. Koski,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it complies with all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you will receive an e-mail containing information on the amendments required prior to publication. When all required modifications have been addressed, you will receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will proceed to our production department and be scheduled for publication.

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Thank you for your thoughtful revisions. This is great paper and an important contribution to the literature on early / child marriage.

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Acceptance letter

20 Feb 2020

Dear Dr. Koski:

I am pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department.

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Marriage Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on marriage.

In general, marriage can be described as a bond/commitment between a man and a woman. Also, this bond is strongly connected with love, tolerance, support, and harmony. Also, creating a family means to enter a new stage of social advancement. Marriages help in founding the new relationship between females and males. Also, this is thought to be the highest as well as the most important Institution in our society. The marriage essay is a guide to what constitutes a marriage in India. 

Whenever we think about marriage, the first thing that comes to our mind is the long-lasting relationship. Also, for everyone, marriage is one of the most important decisions in their life. Because you are choosing to live your whole life with that 1 person. Thus, when people decide to get married, they think of having a lovely family, dedicating their life together, and raising their children together. The circle of humankind is like that only. 

Read 500 Words Essay on Dowry System

As it is seen with other experiences as well, the experience of marriage can be successful or unsuccessful. If truth to be held, there is no secret to a successful marriage. It is all about finding the person and enjoying all the differences and imperfections, thereby making your life smooth. So, a good marriage is something that is supposed to be created by two loving people. Thus, it does not happen from time to time. Researchers believe that married people are less depressed and more happy as compared to unmarried people. 

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Concepts of Marriage

There is no theoretical concept of marriage. Because for everyone these concepts will keep on changing. But there are some basic concepts which are common in every marriage. These concepts are children, communication , problem-solving , and influences. Here, children may be the most considerable issue. Because many think that having a child is a stressful thing. While others do not believe it. But one thing is sure that having children will change the couple’s life. Now there is someone else besides them whose responsibilities and duties are to be done by the parents. 

Another concept in marriage is problem-solving where it is important to realize that you can live on your own every day. Thus, it is important to find solutions to some misunderstandings together. This is one of the essential parts of a marriage. Communication also plays a huge role in marriage. Thus, the couple should act friends, in fact, be,t friends. There should be no secret between the couple and no one should hide anything. So, both persons should do what they feel comfortable. It is not necessary to think that marriage is difficult and thus it makes you feel busy and unhappy all the time. 

Marriage is like a huge painting where you brush your movements and create your own love story. 

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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Child marriage'

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Ali, Anjum Ashraf. "Child marriage in Islamic law." Thesis, McGill University, 2000. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=31082.

Sabel, Johanna. "Child marriage, only for some - An argumentation analysis of the arguments regarding child marriage in the Swedish political arena." Thesis, Malmö universitet, Fakulteten för kultur och samhälle (KS), 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-23406.

Johansson, Nathalie. "Child Marriage : The underlying reasons and possible solutions." Thesis, Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för samhällsstudier (SS), 2015. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-45021.

Alking, Alaa. "CHILD MARRIAGE PRACTICES IN THE SYRIAN REFUGEE CAMPS." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Teologiska institutionen, 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-396789.

Adeniyi, Olayinka Oluwakemi. "Legal protection of the girl child against child marriage (Aure Yarinya) in Nigeria." Thesis, University of Pretoria, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/64609.

Nasrullah, Muazzam [Verfasser]. "Child marriage and its impact on maternal and child health in Pakistan / Muazzam Nasrullah." Bielefeld : Universitätsbibliothek Bielefeld, 2015. http://d-nb.info/1077605277/34.

Sanmartin, Beatrice <1996&gt. "The violation of child brides’ human rights: the possible solutions to tackle child marriage." Master's Degree Thesis, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/10579/20483.

Kim-Im, Julia. "Children's developing social cognitions on love and marriage." CSUSB ScholarWorks, 1993. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd-project/474.

Sjösvärd, Eira. "Legal Approaches to Child Marriage Concluded Abroad : A Comparison between Swedish Private International Law and English and Scottish Private International Law on Child Marriage." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Juridiska institutionen, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-431944.

Slighting, Sadie Andrews. "Post-birth Marriage, White-Hispanic Families, and Child Academic Achievement." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2020. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/8483.

Olaborede, Adebola Olufunmi. "The cultural practice of child marriage as a challenge to the realisation of the human rights of the girl –child: a comparative study of South Africa and Nigeria." Thesis, University of Fort Hare, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10353/2578.

Annor, Euphemia Nyantakyiwaah. "The impact of child marriage on the sub-Saharan African economy." Diss., University of Pretoria, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/64631.

Grime, Jill. "Children in between : child rights and child placement in Sri Lanka." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2000. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/3675/.

Kelly, Nancy. "Decision making in child protection practice." Thesis, University of Huddersfield, 2000. http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/4845/.

Lalonde, Simon. "Child rearing practices and attitudes of adolescent fathers." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 1988. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/11500/.

Katz, Emma. "Surviving together : domestic violence and mother-child relationships." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2015. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28456/.

Cartwright, Kim. "The relationship between child ADHD and maternal expressed emotion : a longitudinal analysis of child and family effects." Thesis, University of Southampton, 2013. https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/365631/.

Mgidlana, Roberta Hlalisa. "Should South Africa criminalise ukuthwala leading to child and forced marriages?" University of the Western Cape, 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/11394/7607.

Kohno, Ayako. "Exploring the Background Factors of Child Marriage in Malaysia: A Qualitative Study." Kyoto University, 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/2433/254511.

Eng, Jessica. "Addressing discourses in manuals/texts on male engagement in ending child marriage." Thesis, Malmö universitet, Fakulteten för kultur och samhälle (KS), 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-23757.

Owohunwa, Folayemi Oluwatosin. "Extent, experiences and perceptions on the practice of child marriage in northern Nigeria." Thesis, University of Leeds, 2018. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/22777/.

Worugji, Nheoma Eme. "Media portrayal of Child marriage in Nigeria in the light of existing laws." Master's thesis, Faculty of Law, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/30427.

Lackovich-Van, Gorp Ashley N. "Positive Deviance and Child Marriage by Abduction in the Sidama Zone of Ethiopia." Antioch University / OhioLINK, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=antioch1412885500.

Moschetti, Carole Olive. "Conjugal wrongs dont make rights : international feminist activism, child marriage and sexual relativism /." Connect to thesis, 2005. http://repository.unimelb.edu.au/10187/3135.

Phillips, Shannon. "Essays on HIV, Marriage and Education in Sub Saharan Africa." Thesis, Boston College, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/2345/1993.

Bakhtibekova, Zulfiya. "Early girls' marriage in Tajikistan : causes and continuity." Thesis, University of Exeter, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10871/17438.

Mafhala, Vhangani Richard. "Child marriage : a violation of human rights of girls in a free South Africa." Diss., University of Pretoria, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/53428.

Wrightson, Mary. "Feminism and the practice of marriage, family, and child counseling in two California counties." Scholarly Commons, 1991. https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/uop_etds/2950.

Guhman, Kiran Kaur. "Violence within the family : risk factors associated with child maltreatment." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2014. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/5320/.

López, Melonio María Noel. "Asking “the child question” : - an analysis of the child perspective of Swedish legislation concerning child marriage with special focus on the recognition of those enacted in other countries." Thesis, Umeå universitet, Juridiska institutionen, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-175438.

Goisis, Alice. "Childbearing postponement and child wellbeing in the U.K. : reconciling and integrating different perspectives." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2013. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/844/.

Piper, Christine. "'Making-sense' of child neglect : an exploration of child welfare professionals' practice." Thesis, University of Huddersfield, 2013. http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/20345/.

Walsh, Kieran. "Risk and reflexivity in the development of Irish child protection law and policy, 1919-2017." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2018. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/51649/.

Crowe, Rachel. "Living with a child with autism spectrum disorder : sibling and parental." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2014. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/5383/.

Cheng, Can. "Parental Involvement and Child Achievement in School Among Interracial Marriage and Same-race Marriage: Comparison of White-White, Asian-Asian, and White-Asian Families." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2016. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/5938.

Badzis, Mastura. "Teachers' and parents' understanding of the concept of play in child development and education." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2003. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/2502/.

Kavari, Elizabeth Ikka Tjipetekera. "The impact of early marriage on the education attainment of the San-girl child in Omaheke Region, Namibia." Thesis, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1020052.

Sharp-Jeffs, Nicola. "A lot going on : the links between going missing, forced marriage and child sexual exploitation." Thesis, University of Bedfordshire, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10547/622097.

Zaher, Zulfia. "The Problematic Socialization of Child Marriage in Afghanistan: Perceptions, Challenges, and Possibilities for Social Change." Ohio University / OhioLINK, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1375720048.

Ramnath, Prudence. "Are traditional African practices relating to child marriages in the face of HIV/AIDS in violation to the South African legal framework?" Thesis, University of the Western Cape, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/11394/5124.

Boodhoo, Amanda. "An examination of collaborative working in child protection." Thesis, University of Greenwich, 2010. http://gala.gre.ac.uk/7134/.

Mawodza, Obdiah. "An assessment of the legal framework on the protection of girls from child marriages in Malawi." Thesis, University of the Western Cape, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/11394/5151.

Valentine, Marguerite Mary. "Developing a critical theory of child abuse : a discussion of the nature of child abuse as a manifestation of the social order." Thesis, University of Warwick, 1989. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/34822/.

Kotze, Marthé. "Is the difference in minimum legal ages of marriage for girls and boys in South Africa a violation of equality?" Diss., University of Pretoria, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/73472.

Alfano, Marco. "Female and child welfare in India : an empirical analysis." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2011. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/50806/.

Chung, Yee-har Ida. "An exploratory study of marital adjustment of mothers with a first born child /." [Hong Kong : University of Hong Kong], 1992. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record.jsp?B13418075.

Coulombe, Harold. "Child labour and schooling in West Africa : a three country study." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2000. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/36635/.

Arsene, Camelia V. "The quality of parent-child relationship and health in later life." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2009. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/3112/.

Sayeed, Yeasmin. "Child Marriage, Human Development and Welfare : Using Public Spending, Taxation and Conditional Cash Transfers as Policy Instruments." Doctoral thesis, Örebro universitet, Handelshögskolan vid Örebro Universitet, 2016. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-47122.

Melchiorre, Angela. "The right balance : The minimum age for marriage and the convention on the rights of the child." Thesis, University of London, 2011. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.536783.

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A woman living her dream said her life became a nightmare overnight.

An American travel influencer said that ever since posting about living a happy, childfree life at age 37 last fall, she’s been hounded by internet trolls and cyberbullies — mostly male — who spew vitriol at her. 

However, after writing a piece for Today.com detailing her harrowing experience, Emily Hart, now 38, has realized she isn’t alone in her struggle to live life to the fullest without being attacked for it. 

“The response to the essay has been really lovely and overwhelmingly positive with many women reaching out who can relate,” she told The Post

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Emily Hart 💜 | solo travel (@emilyventures)

Hart, who goes by emilyventures on Instagram, first posted a reel of herself in all the beautiful travel destinations she’s visited, along with the title: “Age 37: Never married. No Kids.”

It has been viewed more than 16 million times. 

Since then, though, she’s gotten bombarded with hateful comments.

One she shared in her essay reads: “No kids, not married, and 37, just a big child with no responsibility and never done anything useful, pathetic cow.”

She wrote that “hundreds of commenters per hour” told her she was “pathetic” and speculated that feminism “deluded me into believing I was happy.” 

Hart noted that many of the commenters were men who had pictures of their children in their profile photos. Some women messaged her, too — “many with Bible verses and ‘kindness’ in their bios, telling me every variation of ‘you will die alone’ and ‘no one wants you anyway’ that they could muster,” she added.

According to her rant, she suspects her post went viral among the “tradwife,” side of the internet, in which content creators glorify staying at home and adhering to traditional gender roles. 

The influencer of more than a decade said that in the first week after making her post, she doesn’t think she slept for over 30 minutes at a time.

She later fell into a depression and suffered from “digestive problems, low energy, panic attacks, angry outbursts, and my skin started breaking out,” she wrote. 

As a seasoned influencer, she was used to handling a few nasty comments and she would just block a hater or delete a crass comment — and then move on with her life.

Unfortunately, the hateful words seemingly came in faster than she was able to delete them. Sharing her life online had once filled her with so much confidence, but the opposite was happening now. 

” ‘It’s not normal to have this much negativity thrown at you,’ I tried to explain to friends, but the truth is not many people have ever or will ever experience anything like this,” she penned. 

“There is no road map or DSM diagnosis for going viral, but as I now know from my experience, it can be life-altering,” she added.

She felt pressured to write follow-up posts explaining that she didn’t necessarily want to avoid marriage or having kids forever — but it was where she was in her life at the moment, and it wasn’t going to stop her from enjoying herself. 

The way she views social media has changed since negative comments piled up.

“For months after the post, I was on edge whenever I opened Instagram,” she wrote in her essay. “The app that makes up a large percentage of my livelihood had become something I feared.”

Hart, a solo traveler who claims she has visited all 50 states and almost every national park, is sharing her hardships along with her travels to spread awareness about cyberbullying. 

“I want to use my experiences to clear the field for others, and I believe vulnerability and honesty are how to do it,” she said. 

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