Teenage, Married and Out of School: Effects of early marriage and childbirth on school dropout

Teenage, Married, and Out of School: Effects of early marriage and childbirth on school dropout
 

Carina Omoeva, Director, Education Policy and Data Center

Rachel Hatch, Research Associate, Education Policy and Data Center

EPDC's long-awaited research paper on teen marriage and education is out. Teenage, Married, and Out of School: Effects of early marriage and childbirth on school dropout provides empirical support for the negative effects of these two things on girls' education at the secondary level. Drawing on a large N dataset across nine Southern and Eastern African countries, EPDC shows that girls who marry early are 20 times as likely to be out of school than their unmarried peers. Girls in Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya are 40 times as likely to be out of school. The study also delves into Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data from Malawi to examine the effects of early marriage and education across two separate academic years, and provides support for targeted policies and interventions to address early marriage and pregnancy, such as Malawi's readmission policy. The study provides strong support for policies which specifically target girls who are at high risk of early marriage or pregnancy, rather than education policies which seek to target secondary-aged girls more generally. You can read the report here.

Probabilities of school retention in Malawi by marriage and childbirth, girls ages 13-17 with 95% confidence intervals