IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/cysrev/v116y2020ics0190740920308690.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Prevalence, determinants and socio-economic inequality of early marriage among men in India

Author

Listed:
  • Chauhan, Shekhar
  • Sekher, T.V.
  • Kumar, Pradeep
  • Srivastava, Shobhit
  • Patel, Ratna

Abstract

The practice of child marriage still prevails in many communities of India, especially those are governed by customary and traditional practices. Although girls are excessively affected and form the vast majority of the victims of child marriage, boys are also subjected to early marriage. Much has been discussed about the child marriage of girls, but surprisingly early marriage of boys has received very little attention in India. This study attempted to explore the various reasons associated with early marriage among men and also investigate the region-wise inequality in India with the help of the concentration curve. Estimates of decomposition analysis for quantifying the contribution of various explanatory variables for early marriage among men were also presented. This study utilized data from National Family Health Survey-4 with a sample size of 71,666 ever-married men. Men who had higher education levels were 46% less likely to marry before the age 21 than men who had no education [OR: 0.54, P < 0.01]. Rajasthan (51%) witnessed the highest percentage of early marriage among men, followed by Madhya Pradesh (50.4%) and Uttar Pradesh (49.1%). It was found that education, caste, residence, and wealth status explain nearly three-fourths of the observed inequality in the occurrence of early marriage among men. It is suggested that for reducing the incidences of early marriages among men requires confrontation of the barriers embedded in laws, policies, and in social norms and values. It would be appropriate for policy-makers to direct their efforts to specific regions and communities where the prevalence of early marriage among men is still higher and an accepted norm.

Suggested Citation

  • Chauhan, Shekhar & Sekher, T.V. & Kumar, Pradeep & Srivastava, Shobhit & Patel, Ratna, 2020. "Prevalence, determinants and socio-economic inequality of early marriage among men in India," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:116:y:2020:i:c:s0190740920308690
    DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105273
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740920308690
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105273?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Maertens, Annemie, 2013. "Social Norms and Aspirations: Age of Marriage and Education in Rural India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 1-15.
    2. Kaivan Munshi, 2019. "Caste and the Indian Economy," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 57(4), pages 781-834, December.
    3. Efevbera, Yvette & Bhabha, Jacqueline & Farmer, Paul E. & Fink, Günther, 2017. "Girl child marriage as a risk factor for early childhood development and stunting," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 91-101.
    4. Delprato, Marcos & Akyeampong, Kwame & Sabates, Ricardo & Hernandez-Fernandez, Jimena, 2015. "On the impact of early marriage on schooling outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa and South West Asia," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 42-55.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dietrich, Stephan & Meysonnat, Aline & Rosales, Francisco & Cebotari, Victor & Gassmann, Franziska, 2021. "Economic development, weather shocks and child marriage in South Asia: A machine learning approach," MERIT Working Papers 2021-034, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).

    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. Delprato, Marcos & Akyeampong, Kwame & Dunne, Máiréad, 2017. "Intergenerational Education Effects of Early Marriage in Sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 173-192.
    2. Cummins, Joseph & Guo, Jingyan & Agarwal, Neha & Aiyar, Anaka & Jain, Vaishali & Bergmann, Andrew, 2024. "Caste Differences in Child Growth: Disentangling Endowment and Investment Effects," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    3. Duggal, Khushi, 2023. "The Relationship between Child Marriage and Female Educational Attainment in India," Warwick-Monash Economics Student Papers 57, Warwick Monash Economics Student Papers.
    4. Battaglia, Marianna & Lebedinski, Lara, 2015. "Equal Access to Education: An Evaluation of the Roma Teaching Assistant Program in Serbia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 62-81.
    5. Biswajit Banerjee & Risto Herrala, 2024. "Testing the impact of liquidation speed on leverage using Indian data," Working Papers 113, Ashoka University, Department of Economics.
    6. Margaux Suteau, 2020. "Inheritance Rights and Women's Empowerment in the Labor and Marriage Markets," THEMA Working Papers 2020-17, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    7. Khanna, Madhulika & Majumdar, Shruti, 2020. "Caste-ing wider nets of credit: A mixed methods analysis of informal lending and caste relations in Bihar," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 20(C).
    8. Bhowmick, Kanishka & Dasgupta, Indraneel & Pal, Sarmistha, 2024. "Within-Group Inequality and Caste-Based Crimes in India," IZA Discussion Papers 17383, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Chhavi Tiwari & Srinivas Goli & Mohammad Zahid Siddiqui & Pradeep S. Salve, 2022. "Poverty, wealth inequality and financial inclusion among castes in Hindu and Muslim communities in Uttar Pradesh, India," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(6), pages 1227-1255, August.
    10. Bhagavatula, Suresh & Bhalla, Manaswini & Goel, Manisha & Vissa, Balagopal, 2023. "Social diversity in corporate boards and firm outcomes," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    11. Auriol, Emmanuelle & Platteau, Jean-Philippe & Camilotti, Giula, 2017. "Eradicating Women-Hurting Customs: What Role for Social Engineering?," CEPR Discussion Papers 12107, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Karol Mazur, 2020. "Sharing Risk to Avoid Tragedy: Informal Insurance and Irrigation in Village Economies," CSAE Working Paper Series 2020-19, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    13. Sania Ashraf & Cristina Bicchieri & Upasak Das & Tanu Gupta & Alex Shpenev, 2024. "Learning from diversity: ``jati" fractionalization, social expectations and improved sanitation practices in India," Discussion Papers 24-01, Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi.
    14. repec:ags:aaea22:336010 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Stimpfle, Alexander & Stadelmann, David, 2016. "Marriage Age Affects Educational Gender Inequality: International Evidence," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145492, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    16. Keera Allendorf & Arland Thornton & Dirgha J. Ghimire & Linda Young-DeMarco & Colter Mitchell, 2021. "A Good Age to Marry? An Intergenerational Model of the Influence of Timing Attitudes on Entrance into Marriage," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 37(1), pages 179-209, March.
    17. Auriol, Emmanuelle & Camilotti, Giula & Platteau, Jean-Philippe, 2017. "Eradicating Women-Hurting Customs: What Role for Social Engineering?," CEPR Discussion Papers 12107, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Tisdall, E. Kay M. & Cuevas-Parra, Patricio, 2020. "Challenges for children’s participation: Child activism for ending child marriage," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    19. Islam, Asad & Pakrashi, Debayan & Vlassopoulos, Michael & Wang, Liang Choon, 2021. "Stigma and misconceptions in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic: A field experiment in India," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 278(C).
    20. Aswathy Rachel Varughese & Indrajit Bairagya, 2023. "Socio-economic inequalities in spending on various levels of education across Indian households: an update," Indian Economic Review, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 197-229, June.
    21. Suanna Oh, 2023. "Does Identity Affect Labor Supply?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(8), pages 2055-2083, August.

    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:eee:cysrev:v:116:y:2020:i:c:s0190740920308690. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/childyouth .

    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.