IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0196041.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Early school failure predicts teenage pregnancy and marriage: A large population-based cohort study in northern Malawi

Author

Listed:
  • Judith R Glynn
  • Bindu S Sunny
  • Bianca DeStavola
  • Albert Dube
  • Menard Chihana
  • Alison J Price
  • Amelia C Crampin

Abstract

Background: School dropout has been linked to early pregnancy and marriage but less is known about the effect of school performance. We aimed to assess whether school performance influenced age at sexual debut, pregnancy and marriage, and from what age school drop-out and performance were associated with these later life events. Methods: Data from 2007–2016 from a demographic surveillance site in northern Malawi with annual updating of schooling status and grades, and linked sexual behaviour surveys, were analysed to assess the associations of age-specific school performance (measured as age-for-grade) and status (in or out of school) on subsequent age at sexual debut, pregnancy and marriage. Landmark analysis with Cox regression was used to estimate hazard ratios of sexual debut, pregnancy and marriage by schooling at selected (landmark) ages, controlling for socio-economic factors. Results: Information on at least one outcome was available for >16,000 children seen at ages 10–18. Sexual debut was available on a subset aged ≥15 by 2011. For girls, being out of school was strongly associated with earlier sexual debut, pregnancy and marriage. For example, using schooling status at age 14, compared to girls in primary, those who had dropped out had adjusted hazard ratios of subsequent sexual debut, pregnancy and marriage of 5.39 (95% CI 3.27–8.86), 2.39 (1.82–3.12), and 2.76 (2.08–3.67) respectively. For boys, the equivalent association with sexual debut was weak, 1.92 (0.81–4.55), but that with marriage was strong, 3.74 (2.28–6.11), although boys married later. Being overage-for-grade was not associated with sexual debut for girls or boys. For girls, being overage-for-grade from age 10 was associated with earlier pregnancy and marriage (e.g. adjusted hazard ratio 2.84 (1.32–6.17) for pregnancy and 3.19 (1.47–6.94) for marriage, for those ≥3 years overage compared to those on track at age 10). For boys, overage-for-grade was associated with earlier marriage from age 12, with stronger associations at older ages (e.g. adjusted hazard ratio 2.41 (1.56–3.70) for those ≥3 years overage compared to those on track at age 14). For girls ≥3 years overage at age 14, 39% were pregnant before they were 18, compared to 18% of those who were on track. The main limitation was the use of reported ages of sexual debut, pregnancy and marriage. Conclusions: School progression at ages as young as 10 can predict teenage pregnancy and marriage, even after adjusting for socio-economic factors. Early education interventions may reduce teenage pregnancy and marriage as well as improving learning.

Suggested Citation

  • Judith R Glynn & Bindu S Sunny & Bianca DeStavola & Albert Dube & Menard Chihana & Alison J Price & Amelia C Crampin, 2018. "Early school failure predicts teenage pregnancy and marriage: A large population-based cohort study in northern Malawi," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(5), pages 1-17, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0196041
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0196041
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0196041
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0196041&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0196041?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sunny, Bindu S. & Elze, Markus & Chihana, Menard & Gondwe, Levie & Crampin, Amelia C. & Munkhondya, Masoyaona & Kondowe, Scotch & Glynn, Judith R., 2017. "Failing to progress or progressing to fail? Age-for-grade heterogeneity and grade repetition in primary schools in Karonga district, northern Malawi," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 68-80.
    2. Marta Favara, 2017. "Do Dreams Come True? Aspirations and Educational Attainments of Ethiopian Boys and Girls," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 26(5), pages 561-583.
    3. Monica J. Grant, 2015. "The Demographic Promise of Expanded Female Education: Trends in the Age at First Birth in Malawi," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 41(3), pages 409-438, September.
    4. World Bank, 2010. "The Education System in Malawi," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 5937.
    5. Christin McConnell & Mupuwaliywa Mupuwaliywa, 2016. "Keeping Girls in School," World Bank Publications - Reports 24557, The World Bank Group.
    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. Jochim, Janina & Cluver, Lucie D. & Meinck, Franziska, 2021. "Learner pregnancy in South Africa’s Eastern Cape: The Factors affecting adolescent girls' school withdrawal during pregnancy," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    2. Williams, Eunice Mueni & Padmadas, Sabu S. & Väisänen, Heini, 2024. "Falling behind in school: Mother’s economic empowerment and its association with children’s grade progression in Malawi," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    3. Benson John & Natalie Nitsche, 2021. "Stalls and reversals in age at first marriage in sub-Saharan Africa: the role of female education expansion," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2021-022, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    4. Gowokani Chijere Chirwa & Jacob Mazalale & Gloria Likupe & Dominic Nkhoma & Levison Chiwaula & Jesman Chintsanya, 2019. "An evolution of socioeconomic related inequality in teenage pregnancy and childbearing in Malawi," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(11), pages 1-16, November.
    5. Rafi Amir-ud-Din & Hafiz Zahid Mahmood & Faisal Abbas & Verda Salman & Sameen Zafar, 2022. "Leaving studies because of lack of interest: an analysis of the risk factors of school dropouts in Pakistan," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 56(5), pages 3189-3214, October.

    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. Aregawi G Gebremariam & Elisabetta Lodigiani & Giacomo Pasini, 2024. "The Impact of Ethiopian Productive Safety Net Program on Children's Educational Aspirations and Attainments," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 33(3), pages 271-296.
    2. Alamoodi, A.H. & Zaidan, B.B. & Zaidan, A.A. & Albahri, O.S. & Chen, Juliana & Chyad, M.A. & Garfan, Salem & Aleesa, A.M., 2021. "Machine learning-based imputation soft computing approach for large missing scale and non-reference data imputation," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    3. Dalton,Patricio S. & Ruschenpohler,Julius & Zia,Bilal Husnain, 2018. "Determinants and dynamics of business aspirations : evidence from small-scale entrepreneurs in an emerging market," Policy Research Working Paper Series 8400, The World Bank.
    4. Kilburn, Kelly & Handa, Sudhanshu & Angeles, Gustavo & Mvula, Peter & Tsoka, Maxton, 2017. "Short-term impacts of an unconditional cash transfer program on child schooling: Experimental evidence from Malawi," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 63-80.
    5. Servaas van der Berg & Gabrielle Wills & Rebecca Selkirk & Charles Adams & Chris van Wyk, 2019. "The cost of repetition in South Africa," Working Papers 13/2019, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    6. Fiona Carmichael & Christian K. Darko & Nicholas Vasilakos, 2022. "Well‐being and employment of young people in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam: Is work enough?," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 40(2), March.
    7. Kyereko, Daniel Owusu & Smith, William C. & Hlovor, Ishmael & Keney, Gabriel, 2022. "Understanding grade repetition from the perspectives of teachers and principals in basic schools in Ghana," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    8. Khawar Afreen & Patrizia Ordine & Giuseppe Rose, 2024. "Association between Education and Fertility: New Evidence from the Study in Pakistan," Economies, MDPI, vol. 12(10), pages 1-14, September.
    9. Hazal Colak Oz & Çiçek Güven & Gonzalo Nápoles, 2023. "School dropout prediction and feature importance exploration in Malawi using household panel data: machine learning approach," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 6(1), pages 245-287, April.
    10. Daphne H. Liu & Adrian E. Raftery, 2020. "How Do Education and Family Planning Accelerate Fertility Decline?," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 46(3), pages 409-441, September.
    11. Berger, Hoël & Dasré, Aurélien, 2024. "Religious affiliation, education, and fertility in sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    12. Asim, Salman & Chimombo, Joseph & Chugunov, Dmitry & Gera, Ravinder, 2019. "Moving teachers to Malawi’s remote communities: A data-driven approach to teacher deployment," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 26-43.
    13. Shelly Lundberg, 2020. "Educational gender gaps," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 87(2), pages 416-439, October.
    14. Margaret Frye & Sara Lopus, 2018. "From Privilege to Prevalence: Contextual Effects of Women’s Schooling on African Marital Timing," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(6), pages 2371-2394, December.
    15. Mulera, David Mc W.J. & Ndala, Ken Kaziputa & Nyirongo, Richard, 2017. "Analysis of factors affecting pupil performance in Malawi’s primary schools based on SACMEQ survey results," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 59-68.
    16. Estelle McLean & Amelia C Crampin & Rebecca Sear & Maria Sironi & Emma Slaymaker & Albert Dube, 2024. "Transitions to adulthood in men and women in rural Malawi in the 21st century using sequence analysis: Some evidence of delay," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 51(14), pages 459-500.
    17. Carew, Mark T. & Rotenberg, Sara & Chen, Shanquan & Kuper, Hannah, 2024. "Counting who makes the grade: Updated estimates of the share of over-age for grade learners in sub-Saharan Africa using MICS6 data," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    18. Kafumbu, Fatsani Thomas, 2020. "An analytical report on the status of financing of secondary education in Malawi," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    19. Seim, Brigitte & Jablonski, Ryan & Ahlbäck, Johan, 2020. "How information about foreign aid affects public spending decisions: Evidence from a field experiment in Malawi," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    20. Martin Paul Jr. Tabe‐Ojong & Thomas Heckelei & Sebastian Rasch, 2023. "Aspirations and investments in livestock: Evidence of aspiration failure in Kenya," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 54(5), pages 674-696, September.

    More about this item

    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:plo:pone00:0196041. 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: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    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.