Schoolgirls Not Brides: Secondary Education as a Shield Against Child Marriage

This paper examines whether eliminating financial and logistical barriers to secondary education can reduce child marriage. Using a randomized controlled trial including 285 localities in Niger, which ranks last in gender development indices, we show that offering a scholarship upon admission to middle school halves both school dropout and child marriage. It also raises girls’ aspirations for themselves as well as mothers’ aspirations for their daughter, plausibly due to changes in girls’ human capital and preferences. As we find no evidence of displacement effects on non-beneficiary adolescent girls, the scholarship creates unambiguously large social benefits.