IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-22-00210.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Early marriage and early childbearing in West Africa: Does ethnicity matter?

Author

Listed:
  • Agnes Zabsonre

    (Nazi Boni University Burkina Faso, Research Fellow Partnership for Economic Policy (PEP) Kenya)

  • Maxime Agbo

    (School of Statistics, Planning and Demography, University of Parakou, Benin)

Abstract

Recently, Corno et al. (2020) show that aggregate adverse income shocks increase early marriage and early childbearing in sub-Saharan Africa. We argue that early marriage and early childbearing are two phenomenons that are mainly determined by ethnic groups with the strongest cultural norms and practices. In particular, we replicate their empirical results and show that the Fulani ethnic group which is widely dispersed across West Africa region strongly affects early marriage and early childbearing.

Suggested Citation

  • Agnes Zabsonre & Maxime Agbo, 2023. "Early marriage and early childbearing in West Africa: Does ethnicity matter?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 43(1), pages 381-388.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-22-00210
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2023/Volume43/EB-23-V43-I1-P31.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lucia Corno & Nicole Hildebrandt & Alessandra Voena, 2020. "Age of Marriage, Weather Shocks, and the Direction of Marriage Payments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(3), pages 879-915, May.
    2. Naveen Sunder, 2019. "Marriage Age, Social Status, and Intergenerational Effects in Uganda," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(6), pages 2123-2146, December.
    3. Erica Field & Attila Ambrus, 2008. "Early Marriage, Age of Menarche, and Female Schooling Attainment in Bangladesh," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 116(5), pages 881-930, October.
    4. Jason M. Fletcher & Barbara L. Wolfe, 2009. "Education and Labor Market Consequences of Teenage Childbearing: Evidence Using the Timing of Pregnancy Outcomes and Community Fixed Effects," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 44(2).
    5. Amanda Glassman, Kate McQueston, and Rachel Silverman, 2012. "Adolescent Fertility in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Effects and Solutions - Working Paper 295," Working Papers 295, Center for Global Development.
    6. Ambrus, Attila & Field, Erica, 2008. "Early Marriage, Age of Menarche, and Female Schooling Attainment in Bangladesh," Scholarly Articles 3200264, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    7. Catalina Herrera & David E Sahn & Kira M Villa, 2019. "Teen Fertility and Female Employment Outcomes: Evidence from Madagascar," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 28(3), pages 277-303.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Villar, Paola, 2021. "Paternal mortality, early marriages, and marital trajectories in Senegal," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    2. David SAHN & Catalina HERRERA, 2014. "The Impact of Early Childbearing on Schooling and Cognitive Skills among Young Women in Madagascar," Working Papers 201428, CERDI.
    3. Corno, Lucia & Voena, Alessandra, 2023. "Child marriage as informal insurance: Empirical evidence and policy simulations," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    4. Fávara, Marta & Lavado, Pablo & Sánchez, Alan, 2016. "Understanding teenage fertility, cohabitation, and marriage: the case of Peru," Avances de Investigación 0022, Grupo de Análisis para el Desarrollo (GRADE).
    5. Le, Dung D. & Molina, Teresa & Ibuka, Yoko & Goto, Rei, 2024. "The Intergenerational Health Effects of Child Marriage Bans," IZA Discussion Papers 17089, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Murat G. Kırdar & Meltem Dayıoğlu & İsmet Koç, 2018. "The Effects of Compulsory-Schooling Laws on Teenage Marriage and Births in Turkey," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 12(4), pages 640-668.
    7. Cristina Bellés-Obreroy & María Lombardi, 2020. "Will you marry me, later? Age-of-marriage laws and child marriage in Mexico," Department of Economics Working Papers wp_gob_2020_11, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella.
    8. Hugues Champeaux & Elsa Gautrain & Karine Marazyan, 2024. "Men’s premarital migration and marriage payments: Evidence from Indonesia," DeFiPP Working Papers 2402, University of Namur, Development Finance and Public Policies.
    9. Momoe Makino & Abu S. Shonchoy & Zaki Wahhaj, 2021. "Early Effects of the COVID-19 Lockdown on Children in Rural Bangladesh," Working Papers 2104, Florida International University, Department of Economics.
    10. Heath, Rachel & Mushfiq Mobarak, A., 2015. "Manufacturing growth and the lives of Bangladeshi women," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 1-15.
    11. La Ferrara, Eliana & Gulesci, Selim & Jindani, Sam & Smerdon, David & Sulaiman, Munshi & Young, H. Peyton, 2021. "A Stepping Stone Approach to Understanding Harmful Norms," CEPR Discussion Papers 15776, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Magda Tsaneva, 2020. "The Effect of Weather Variability on Child Marriage in Bangladesh," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(8), pages 1346-1359, November.
    13. Isabelle Chort & Rozenn Hotte & Karine Marazyan, 2021. "Income shocks, bride price and child marriage in Turkey," Working papers of Transitions Energétiques et Environnementales (TREE) hal-03258215, HAL.
    14. Herrera Catalina & E. Sahn David & M. Villa Kira, 2017. "Working Paper 279 - Teen Fertility and Labor Market Segmentation in Madagascar," Working Paper Series 2396, African Development Bank.
    15. Baten, Joerg & de Pleijt, Alexandra M., 2022. "Female autonomy generated successful long-term human capital development: Evidence from 16th to 19th century Europe," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    16. Hélène Giacobino & Elise Huillery & Bastien Michel & Mathilde Sage, 2022. "Schoolgirls Not Brides: Secondary Education as a Shield Against Child Marriage," Working Papers DT/2022/01, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
    17. Dessy,Sylvain Eloi & Gninafon,Horace Mahugnon Akim & Tiberti,Luca & Tiberti,Marco, 2021. "COVID-19 and Children’s School Resilience : Evidence from Nigeria," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9736, The World Bank.
    18. Amirapu, Amrit & Asadullah, M Niaz & Wahhaj, Zaki, 2022. "Can Child Marriage Law Affect Attitudes and Behaviour in the Absence of Strict Enforcement? Experimental Evidence from Bangladesh," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1107, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    19. Lucia Corno & Nicole Hildebrandt & Alessandra Voena, 2020. "Age of Marriage, Weather Shocks, and the Direction of Marriage Payments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(3), pages 879-915, May.
    20. Dessy, Sylvain & Gninafon, Horace & Tiberti, Luca & Tiberti, Marco, 2023. "Free compulsory education can mitigate COVID-19 disruptions’ adverse effects on child schooling," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Early marriage; early childbearing; drought; Fulani; West Africa;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-22-00210. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.