literature review on early marriage in nigeria pdf

Teenaged, married, and out of school: Effects of early marriage and childbirth on school exit in Eastern Africa

• Published: 28 October 2020
• Volume 52 , pages 299–324, ( 2022 )

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• Carina Omoeva 1 &
• Rachel Hatch   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6241-3519 1  

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This article investigates the relationship of early marriage to school participation and whether other factors, including individual or family characteristics and childbirth, moderate the relationship. It uses national household survey data for Eastern Africa, pooled at the regional level. Overall, findings confirm that marriage and schooling appear largely incompatible across the Eastern Africa region at present. The results of the main analysis indicate that married girls are roughly 31 percentage points less likely to be attending school than their unmarried peers. The effect of marriage on school participation trumps other observed factors, including childbirth. Based on an extended analysis using the timing of marriage and two consecutive years of education data in Malawi and Kenya, the article concludes that marriage is a predictor of subsequent school exit.

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This research was conducted through the FHI 360 Education Policy and Data Center. The authors are grateful to Benjamin Sylla, who, while with the FHI 360 Education Policy and Data Center, developed the age adjustment methodology used in this article that allows analysis of the timing of school exit and marriage. This article builds on analysis he conducted examining the relationship of early marriage, school exit, and pregnancy in Nigeria and Malawi. The authors would also like to thank current and former FHI 360 colleagues Anne Smiley, Annette Brown, and Ahlam Kays for their critical review and helpful comments.

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Omoeva, C., Hatch, R. Teenaged, married, and out of school: Effects of early marriage and childbirth on school exit in Eastern Africa. Prospects 52 , 299–324 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11125-020-09517-7

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Accepted : 23 September 2020

Published : 28 October 2020

Issue Date : December 2022

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11125-020-09517-7

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Determinants of early marriage among married women in nine high fertility sub-Saharan African countries: a multilevel analysis of recent demographic and health surveys

Tadele biresaw belachew.

1 Department of Health Systems and Policy, Institute of Public Health, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Gondar, P.O.Box: 196, Gondar, Ethiopia

Wubshet Debebe Negash

Getachew teshale kefale, tesfahun zemene tafere, desale bihonegn asmamaw.

2 Department of Reproductive Health, Institute of Public Health, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Gondar, Gondar, Ethiopia

Associated Data

Data for this study were sourced from Demographic and Health surveys (DHS), which are freely available online at ( https://dhsprogram.com ).

Early marriage is global issue that seriously harms women’s personal development and rights. Regarding this, information about married women’s early marriage is inadequate in the world, including sub-Saharan Africa; therefore, this study aimed to assess the early marriage of women in the top nine highly fertile SSA countries.

Data for this study was obtained from the most recent Demographic and Health Surveys. A total weighted sample of 121,077 married reproductive-age women was included. A multilevel mixed-effect binary logistic regression model was fitted to identify the significant associated factors of early marriage. As a final step, the Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR) was used with a confidence interval of 95% in determining statistical significance.

Overall prevalence of early marriage was 55.11% (95% CI: 54.8, 55.4) and ranged from 28.11% in Burundi to 80.77% in Niger. The factors significantly associated with early marriage were women’s educational status; primary education (AOR = 0.39; 95% CI: 0.38, 0.41), secondary and higher (AOR = 0.1; 95% CI: 0.09, 0.11), employed (AOR = 0.73; 95% CI: 0.71, 0 .75), classified as rich wealth index level (AOR = 0.87; 95% CI: 0.85, 0.91), a number of family size ≥ 7 (AOR = 1.28; 95% CI: 1.23, 1.33), community-level poverty, (AOR = 1.28; 95% CI: 1.23, 1.33) and rural residency (AOR = 1.16;95% CI: 1.12, 1.21).

Marriage before the age of 18 is moderately high in high-fertility countries. Therefore, the respective countries government should give due attention to access to education, and encourage the participation of women in making marriage-related decisions, especially those residing in rural areas.

Early marriage refers to a marriage that occurs before the age of 18, and in which the girl is not prepared for marriage and childbirth [ 1 , 2 ]. In the world, over 700 million women are married before they are 18 years old [ 3 ]. There is a wide variation in the number of early marriages between countries and regions. According to the World Bank, the highest rates of early marriage have been reported in South Asia [ 4 ] and sub-Saharan Africa [ 5 ], where 44 and 39% of girls, respectively, were married before turning 18. Statistical data from 33 countries show that marriage trends haven’t changed much since the International Conference on Population and Development [ 4 ]. More over 19% were in East Asia and Pacific and 18% in Middle East and North Africa [ 5 ].

Early marriage has several negative consequences for women and their children in terms of health and social outcomes. These risks include depression and suicidality; compromised sexual, reproductive, and maternal health [ 6 – 10 ]; A higher risk of intimate partner violence [ 8 , 11 , 12 ]. In addition, early marriage compromises girls’ ability to attend school, leading to school withdrawals [ 7 , 13 – 16 ]. As such, it is a public health concern that violates international human rights laws and seriously impairs the health and development of women and children [ 5 , 9 , 17 – 20 ].

Many factors contribute to the increase in early marriage, including incentives to marry young women out to relieve the economic burden on disadvantaged families [ 18 ]. Furthermore, some parents believe that marrying off their daughters to well-off families will improve their social status and protect their daughters from sexual adversity [ 9 , 21 ]. Moreover, many studies in the world have identified the factors contributing to early marriage. These factors include family income, family size, educational level of the respondents, first sexual encounters by young women before 16 years old, residence, wealth status, perceived marriage age, and exposure to the media [ 22 – 28 ].

The issue of early marriage has been addressed in a variety of ways on a global and regional level over the past decade’s [ 2 , 10 , 29 , 30 ]. With the prevalence of child marriage, the UN formulated Sustainable Development Goal-3 (SDG-3) aimed at contributing significantly to the health and well-being of many countries [ 31 ]. Developing young women’s potential as productive and healthy individuals is a critical part of SDG-3 [ 32 ]. Even though the above strategies have been implemented, however, the prevalence of early marriage in sub-Saharan African countries consistently high [ 32 – 35 ]. Although studies were conducted in specific countries like Nigeria [ 33 ] Democratic republic Congo [ 25 ] and Mali [ 36 ]. A study combining these high fertility countries (Nigeria, Gambia, Burkina Faso, Niger, Democratic Republic Congo, Mali, Chad, Angola, and Burundi) has not been conducted.

In addition the issue has not been adequately explored, and the lack of literature on it may hinder effective efforts, policies and interventions, particularly in sub-Saharan African countries. Hence, this study aimed to determine the prevalence of early marriage, as well as its determinants (both individual and community-level factors) in the top nine highly fertile sub-Saharan African countries.

Study settings and data source

This study utilized pooled data from the latest Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) conducted between January 2010 and December 2018 of nine countries in SSA. Niger, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Chad, Angola, Burundi, Nigeria, Gambia, and Burkina Faso were included in this study. These countries were selected because they are the top ten countries with high fertility rates in SSA with fertility rates above 5.0, a higher value than the rate of 4.44 in SSA and 2.47 worldwide [ 37 ]. One country (Somalia) with no DHS data was excluded from the analysis. The data for these countries were obtained from the official database of the DHS program, www.measuredhs.com after authorization was granted via online request by explaining the purpose of our study. We used the women record (IR file) data set and extracted the dependent and independent variables. The DHS is a nationally representative household survey that uses face-to-face interviews on a wide range of population, health, nutrition tracking, and effect assessment measures. Study participants were selected using a two-stage stratified sampling technique. Enumeration Areas (EAs) were randomly selected in the first stage, while households were selected in the second stage [ 38 ]. A total weighted sample of 121,077 reproductive-age women was included in the study (Table  1 ).

Description of Surveys and sample size characteristics in highly fertile countries in SSA ( n  = 121,077)

Outcome variable (v511)

The outcome variable for this study was early marriage, defined as young girls married before their 18th birthday [ 36 , 39 , 40 ]. It was dichotomized and coded as “yes” =1 if the age at first cohabitation among the women occurred before their 18th birthday and “no” =0 if the first marriage was at 18 years and above.

Explanatory variables

Individual and community level independent variables were included in this study.

Individual level variables; Educational status of respondents, husband education, occupation of respondents, husband occupation,wealth status, media exposure, number of living children.

Community level variables; Community level variables included residences and some were derived from the individual level data of all community members in the primary sampling unit (PSU), which includes the community level poverty, community education, community employment and community level media exposure.

Data analysis

For data analysis Stata version 16 software was used. To ensure the representativeness of the DHS sample and obtain reliable estimations and standard errors, data were weighted (v005/1000000) before analyzing it.

The study fitted four models: the null model with no explanatory variables, model I with individual factors, model II with community factors, and model III with both individual and community factors. As the models were nested, the Intra class Correlation Coefficient (ICC), Median Odds Ratio (MOR) and, deviance (−2LLR) values were used for model comparison and fitness, respectively. Model III was the best-fitting model due to its low deviance. In the multivariable analysis, variables with a p -value less than 0.2 in bivariable analysis were used. Finally, in the multivariable analysis, adjusted odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals and p -values less than 0.05 were utilized to identify factors of early marriage.

Individual level factors

Out of the total respondents, 53.85% women were not attended formal education, 67.62% had no work, and 60.62% had media exposure towards early marriage. Among the participants, 44.54% had seven and above family size. With regard to their economic status, 40.42% women were from the poor wealth quintiles and 39.51% were from the rich wealth quintiles (Table  2 ).

Individual characteristics of respondents in high fertility countries in sub-Saharan Africa ( n  = 121,076)

Community level factors

Of the respondents, 68.20% were rural dwellers. More than half (51.56%) of the respondents were from communities with low proportion of poverty level. Half (50.41%) of women had media exposure. Above 50% (50.64%) of participants were from communities having high proportion of community level education (Table  3 ).

Community level characteristics of respondents in high fertility countries in sub-Saharan Africa ( n  = 121,076)

Prevalence of early marriage in top nine highly fertile sub-Saharan African countries

Overall, the prevalence of early marriage in top nine highly fertile sub-Saharan African countries was 55.11% (54.8, 55.4). The prevalence of early marriage ranged from 28.11% in Burundi to 80.77% in Niger (Fig.  1 ).

Prevalence of early marriage in top nine highly fertile SSA countries

Factors associated with early marriage practice

Regarding individual level factors, the study found that women with a secondary or higher education were 90% less likely to be married below the age of 18 years than those who had no formal education (AOR = 0.1; 95% CI: 0.09, 0.11) and those women with primary education were 61% less likely to be married below the age of 18 years compared to women who have never had formal education (AOR = 0.39; 95% CI: 0.38, 0.41). Women who were working were 27% less likely to be married below the age of 18 years compared to those who had no working (AOR = 0.73; 95% CI: 0.71, 0 .75). The odds of being married below at 18 years in the rich level were 13% less likely compared to women who live in poverty (AOR = 0.87; 95% CI: 0.85, 0.91). The likelihood of women’s early marriage was high among women who had ≥7 families size (AOR = 1.28; 95% CI: 1.23, 1.33) compared to 1–3 families size.

About the community level factors, married women classified as high Community level poverty were more likely to have early marriage (AOR = 1.09; 95% CI: 1.01, 1.17) than low Community level poverty. In addition the odds of being married below the age of 18 in rural area were 1.16 more likely than living in an urban area (AOR = 1.16; 95% CI: 1.12, 1.21) (Table  4 ).

Multivariable analyses for factors affecting early marriage practice ( n  = 121,076)

*Statistically significant at p -value< 0.05,

AOR Adjusted Odds Ratio, COR Crude Odds Ratio

Null model: adjusted for individual-level characteristics,

Model 2: Adjusted for community-level characteristics,

Model 3: adjusted for both individual and community-level characteristics

This study revealed the prevalence of early marriage in the top nine highly fertile sub-Saharan African countries was 55.11% (95% CI: 54.8, 55.4). This finding is in line with previous studies in Sub-Saharan Africa [ 32 ]. This finding is higher than a study conducted in Injibara, Ethiopia [ 24 ]. Moreover, the finding is also higher than in studies conducted in Sudan [ 41 ], India [ 26 ], and Roma of Serbia [ 42 ]. This prevalence, however, is lower than that study conducted in east Gojjam, Ethiopia [ 43 ], Amhara Regional State, Ethiopia [ 44 ], Ethiopia [ 44 ], and a study conducted in Bangladesh [ 45 ]. This discrepancy may result from the smaller sample size in the previous studies than in the current study.

The study revealed that women with primary education and secondary and above education were 61 and 90% less likely to be married below the age of 18 years compared to those with no formal education respectively. This study backs up research from Ethiopia that found that a woman’s educational degree is a strong predictor of early marriage [ 46 , 47 ]. Moreover, other studies conducted in Malawi [ 42 ] and Western Uganda [ 42 ] revealed that women’s education level was an independent predictor of early marriage [ 20 , 48 ]. This might be due to the fact that education helps people to know about their rights and enables them to make informed decisions when it comes to marriage [ 3 , 49 , 50 ].

Moreover, this study found that early marriage was lower among women who had work compared to women who had no work. Comparable findings were found in a study conducted in Gambia [ 51 ]. Additionally, Singh and Vennam [ 52 ] reported that girls who were unemployed or working in their families were more likely to marry at a younger age than those who were working, particularly those in the service industries. The odds of being married below the age of 18 in the rich level were 13% less likely compared to those women in the poor level. This result is consistent with two studies conducted in Ethiopia [ 47 , 53 ] and a study done in India [ 54 ]. This might be justified by the poorest families preferring early marriage to generate more income from male family [ 43 ]. This is also supported by another study conducted in Ethiopia revealed that low economic status is one of the predisposing factors for early marriage [ 46 , 55 , 56 ].

Our study found that women from large-sized families were more likely to marry than women from small families. This finding is consistent with studies conducted in Sudan [ 41 ] and Ethiopia [ 24 ]. The reason could be that parents with large families use child marriage as a means of receiving bride costs, reduce their family size, and improve their financial resources [ 24 ]. According to research conducted in West and Central Africa, some rural families consider girls not only a source of wealth, but also a way to increase the family’s social status and prestige [ 57 , 58 ].

In this study, the odds of early marriage among rural women were 1.16 higher compared to that of urban women. The findings of this study are similar to those from Sudan [ 41 ], Bangladesh [ 59 ], and Serbia [ 42 ]. It may be because women in rural areas may not be aware of the health, educational, and economic consequences of early marriage [ 55 , 60 ]. Furthermore, they are unsure of what to do when their parents or guardians violate their human rights [ 55 , 60 , 61 ]. Therefore, women living in rural areas have a higher risk of early marriage than those living in urban areas.

Teenagers who live in communities with a higher proportion of poor were more likely to marry early than teenagers who live in communities with a lower proportion of poverty. This is consistent with other studies in SSA [ 62 ] and Philippines [ 63 ]. This might be due to teenagers who live in communities with poor wealth status having poor access to education and are faced with the problem of early marriage.

The study’s strength was the use of nationally representative survey data sets from large countries. Due to the cross-sectional nature of the data, this study may not demonstrate a causality and effect relationship. In addition, the dataset lacks variables such as cultural norms, behavioral patterns and social norms, which have a significant impact early marriage.

The overall prevalence of early marriage among married reproductive-age women in the top nine highly fertile sub-Saharan African countries is high. Rural residence, non-formal education, wealth index, large family size, and high community-level poverty, were the independent predictors of early marriage in the top nine highly fertile sub-Saharan African countries.

Therefore, the respective countries governments should give due attention to access to education and encourage women’s decision-making power at the age of marriage particularly in rural areas of the region. Moreover, each country government should encourage women to participate in small-scale entrepreneurship to maximize their economic status.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the DHS programs, for the permission to use all the relevant DHS data for this study.

Authors’ contributions

TBB, DBA and WDN conceived the idea, extract the data, data analyzed, drafted, and revised the manuscript. GTK and TZT participate in the draft of the manuscript and interpretation. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

Not applicable.

Availability of data and materials

Declarations.

The study does not involve participants to provide information. Consent to participants is not applicable since the data is secondary and is available in the public domain. All the methods were conducted according to the Helsinki declarations. More details regarding DHS data and ethical standards are available online at ( http://www.dhsprogram.com ).

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Literature review on effects of interventions to reduce the prevalence of child marriage

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Child marriage prevention approaches

This paper presents the current status of research on child marriage and focuses on intervention studies and reviews of evaluations and programs with reduction of child marriage as a core objective. The main research question is: What is the evidence of the effect of approaches to prevent child marriage in low- and middle-income countries? The paper is divided into three main sections. Firstly, we present data on prevalence and trends of child marriage in low- and middle-income countries, focusing on Africa. Then, the main findings of the literature on the causes and drivers of child marriage; reviews of studies on child marriage prevention programs. Finally, we address what the literature says about the effect and impact of the most common approaches and strategies to prevent child marriage and reduce its prevalence. Each section has a sub-chapter on Ethiopia, which has been a focus country for Norway’s contribution to end harmful practices.

According to data from Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), the overall prevalence of women in Africa aged 20–24 who experienced child marriage was 54.0% with results ranging from 16.5% in Rwanda to 81.7% in Niger. Four patterns of levels of child marriage have been identified across sub-Saharan Africa: some countries show little sign of change; earlier declines have stalled in some countries; others show a recent decline; and some show evidence of slow but steady reductions over time. In Ethiopia, the overall prevalence of child marriage declined from about 60% to about 40% between 2005 and 2015.

Child marriage (CM), defined as marriage before the age of 18, is a complex problem with many intersecting root causes and drivers including poverty, conflict and shocks, lack of access to education, lack of opportunities, barriers to rights and health. Gender inequality and systematic discrimination of girls and women is an underlying factor to the practice. Poverty is a major driver and cause of CM and it has been reported from many countries that girls from poor families get married because their parents cannot afford to send them to school or support them financially. Sending girls to school has direct and indirect costs and girls who have ended or dropped out of-school have an increased chance of child marriage.

The practice of child marriage is often closely linked to ideas about proper behavior for girls and how to preserve the honor of both the girl and her family. Arranging marriage for girls serves to prevent them from initiating relationships on their own and risk a socially disapproved premarital pregnancy. Religious beliefs are commonly assumed to have an important role in the persistence of child marriage, but no religion prescribes child marriage and studies have found substantial heterogeneity within the adherents of any particular faith as to how the practice of child marriage is considered.

Studies from Latin-America and parts of Africa have found that it is most common that girls first get pregnant and then marry a man of their own choice. Historically at a global level, child marriage has mostly preceded pregnancy.

We identified one scoping review and four systematic reviews published on the topic between 2007 and 2018. The reviews reached somewhat different conclusions. Three of the four systematic reviews found that girl empowerment approaches were most common and had the highest success rates. Such empowerment programs can include a vast array of activities, often including variations of life skills or vocational training and the reviews found that many using this approach achieved reducing child marriage rates and increasing age at marriage. However, the review that retained the least number of studies concluded that economic approaches, such as incentives and cash transfers, have been most effective. Programs that reported success were commonly community-based and engaged parents and other family members in activities, and had longer duration of participation and greater regularity of attendance.

Findings concerning the effectiveness of economic approaches are inconsistent and different reviews have reached different conclusions: one review found them the most effective, others least effective. One review found that economic approaches had the highest failure rate when used as the sole approach, but then found that interventions coupling it with another approach had a higher success rate. Successful economic programs have, in many cases, been part of efforts to help girls continue school or been conditioned on attendance or educational outcomes. Several studies indicate that the gains of cash support fade quickly when programs stop. Other studies, however, suggest that economic incentives and support may be more effective when combined with interventions addressing norms and/or building girls’ skills.

A very popular approach among NGOs is to encourage community mobilization and build community awareness about the harmful consequences of the practice, with the aim to establish an understanding of the need to abandon or change the practice. The evidence of its effectiveness is quite limited due to a lack of studies that use rigorous methods and measure the impact on behavior. Community engagement approaches typically aim to create long-term social norms change, but there is limited evidence about how best to incorporate a norms-focus into programs for adolescent health and how to demonstrate effectiveness of norms change interventions.

Studies suggest that improving girls’ educational and economic opportunities offer young women acceptable alternatives to early marriage. Interventions that are capable of increasing enrollment and keeping girls in school have showed promising results in reducing child marriage. However, most of the evidence comes from programs that include an economic component and there is less information from programs that focus on reducing non-economic barriers and improving teaching and infrastructures.

Legal and advocacy approaches are common, but poorly de­scribed and evaluated in the literature. In most cases, legal reforms have had little or no effect as an isolated measure due to weak implementation and absence of enforcement.

Although many organizations work to reduce both female genital mutilation and child marriage where both are prevalent, no study has been able to measure the effect of a program on both practices. Both practices occur in many of the same places and among the same subgroups. Both FGM and early/child marriage are thought to protect girls from social and economic risks, and they are driven by poverty and lack of economic opportunity for girls in the areas where they are practiced. In some contexts, cut women have been found to face higher odds of early/child marriage than uncut women.

Multi-level and multicomponent programs have become more common, but child marriage prevention research suggests that single component programs are successful more frequently, while multi-component interventions more often have had mixed results.

The results of the different approaches vary across settings and no approach stands out as equally successful across different settings. Several reviews indicate that empowerment and life skills approaches have had the highest success rates. One review concluded that economic interventions which often aim at helping girls to continue school, have most frequently demonstrated positive impact. Findings suggest that for ‘empowerment of girls’ programs duration, intensity and level of adherence are critical factors to obtain significant impact. It also seems to be important to involve parents and community leaders in designing programs that target adolescents and to include components that target adults.

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This study proposes an elaboration of the human development capability approach by theorizing empowerment capabilities as an essential aspect of the education of excluded village girls. Seeking to explain Chinese village girls’ demand for schooling, the article identifies intangible and instrumental capabilities that have often been overlooked and their indirect influence on social changes in gender roles, in the fertility and domestic transitions, accelerated educational attainment and urbanization. The linkage between village habitus and, one, the poor quality of basic and junior high education, and, two, the high cost of senior high school presented the greatest limitation, which cemented the urban-rural gap and inequality in urban employment. Policy to expand and regulate vocational secondary schools and non-formal skills education would counter the alarming increase in systemic rural-urban inequalities that disproportionately affect village girls and women, and would release pent up aspirations and agency of excluded village girls.

Anita Ghimire , Fiona Samuels

Rohini Pande

International Journal of Educational Development

Susan Kiragu

Within a conceptual framework of Sen's capability approach, the paper explores aspects of girls’ retention in Kajiado schools, Kenya. Drawing on a qualitative study involving in-depth interviews with 24 girls in four schools, the paper discusses the ‘unfreedoms’ the girls experience in relation to environmental, infrastructural and economic constraints, as well as the personal unfreedoms they experience in relation to their gender. The study found that despite these constraints, girls’ retention was linked to their zeal for education and to the part played by key people, supporting and encouraging them and sometimes acting as catalysts for change.

Marit Tjomsland , Henni Aasen

Anita Ghimire

The paper analyses communication strategies for addressing discriminatory social norms in marriage and education for adolescent girls in Nepal

Tribhuvan University, CERID

Madhusudan Subedi

Ragnar Anderson

Aldisonadamara Aldisonadamara

Childhood, adolescence and early adulthood remain for many girls and young women a period of deprivation, danger and vulnerability, resulting in a significant lack of agency and critical development deficits. In many cases, overlapping and intersecting experiences of deprivation, foregone human development opportunities and abuse or exploitation serve to perpetuate and intensify poverty for girls and women over the life-course. Girls’ vulnerabilities in relation to poverty dynamics are different to those of boys and to those of adult women. This is in part because of their relative powerlessness and the particularities of their life stage. What happens at this critical time in their lives can reinforce their poverty status and that of their offspring, or influence their movement into or out of poverty. Poverty research has historically focused on material manifestations of poverty (measured by income and basic human development indicators such as educational enrolment and nutritional status). However, the role that social risks and vulnerabilities play in perpetuating chronic poverty and propelling people into poverty has gained recognition over the past decade. Accordingly, in this report we focus on social institutions – the collection of formal and informal laws, norms and practices that have an effect on human capabilities by either limiting or enabling individual and collective agency. These social institutions, we suggest, have far greater influence on developmental outcomes than is generally appreciated. Social institutions are part of the wider culture that informs multiple aspects of our behaviour and our societies. They play a key role in determining girls’ and young women’s life opportunities and capabilities, by either limiting or enabling individual and collective agency. Social institutions are not inherently good or bad, but when they result in processes that lead to inequality, discrimination and exclusion, they generate a myriad of development deficits and physical and psychological trauma. These barriers to human development can lead to and perpetuate chronic poverty and vulnerability over the course of childhood and adulthood, and potentially inter-generationally. In this report, we identify five critical social institutions, broadening and modifying the Social Institutions and Gender Index of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Within this set of institutions, we pay particular attention to how gender intertwines with other forces of exclusion (class, caste, ethnicity, urban/rural locality, disability, etc). We also highlight the importance of local context, which matters both in the analysis of constraints and in the identification of solutions. Our key modifications to the SIGI are as follows: first, we extend the SIGI range to cover girls rather than just women. Second, we consider a broader definition of well-being beyond the economic, one which captures a range of capabilities and outcomes as well as the complexities of supporting girls and women to both avoid and exit chronic poverty. Third, we give our own labels to the institutions, and also modify some of the component variables, in order to better capture the range of norms and practices that underpin them. Below is a brief overview of each of the characteristics of the five institutions we cover.

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