scholarly journals Age of Marriage, Weather Shocks, and the Direction of Marriage Payments

Econometrica ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 88 (3) ◽  
pp. 879-915 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucia Corno ◽  
Nicole Hildebrandt ◽  
Alessandra Voena
Keyword(s):  
Crop Yields ◽  
Marriage Market ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
Child Marriage ◽  
Economic Role ◽  
Weather Shocks ◽  
Marriage Behavior ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Age Of Marriage

We study how aggregate economic conditions affect the timing of marriage, and particularly child marriage, in Sub‐Saharan Africa and in India. In both regions, substantial monetary or in‐kind transfers occur with marriage: bride price across Sub‐Saharan Africa and dowry in India. In a simple equilibrium model of the marriage market in which parents choose when their children marry, income shocks affect the age of marriage because marriage payments are a source of consumption smoothing, particularly for a woman's family. As predicted by our model, we show that droughts, which reduce annual crop yields by 10 to 15% and aggregate income by 4 to 5%, have opposite effects on the marriage behavior of a sample of 400,000 women in the two regions: in Sub‐Saharan Africa they increase the annual hazard into child marriage by 3%, while in India droughts reduce such a hazard by 4%. Changes in the age of marriage due to droughts are associated with changes in fertility, especially in Sub‐Saharan Africa, and with declines in observed marriage payments. Our results indicate that the age of marriage responds to short‐term changes in aggregate economic conditions and that marriage payments determine the sign of this response. This suggests that, in order to design successful policies to combat child marriage and improve investments in daughters' human capital, it is crucial to understand the economic role of marriage market institutions.

scholarly journals The missing link between legal age of sexual consent and age of marriage in sub-Saharan Africa: implications for sexual and reproductive health and rights

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bright Opoku Ahinkorah ◽  
Joshua Okyere ◽  
John Elvis Hagan ◽  
Abdul-Aziz Seidu ◽  
Richard Gyan Aboagye ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Reproductive Health ◽  
Partner Violence ◽  
Sexuality Education ◽  
Sexual And Reproductive Health ◽  
Sexual Consent ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Child Marriage ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Age Of Marriage

AbstractChild marriage is a fundamental violation of human rights and a threat to access to education, sexual and reproductive health care, and employment. It also threatens freedom from violence, reproductive rights, movement, and the right to consensual marriage. In most countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the legal age of marriage is 18 years. Hence, girls who marry before 18 years are considered as victims of child marriage. Closely knitted to legal age for marriage is the issue of age for sexual consent, which refers to the minimum age at which a person is considered to have the legal capacity to consent to sexual intercourse. While there seem to be a standard legal age for marriage, the legal age for sexual consent varies in most countries in sub-Saharan Africa and is often lower than the legal age of marriage. In this commentary, we argue that the gap between the legal age of sexual consent and marriage partly accounts for some of the sexual and reproductive health challenges such as intimate partner violence, sexually transmitted infections, adolescent pregnancy, early childbirth, including unsafe abortions among adolescent girls in sub-Saharan Africa and infringements on their sexual and reproductive health rights. This commentary highlights strategic potential interventions that could help address the identified gaps. We argue that aligning the age for sexual consent and marriage is not the solution to the problem. However, what is critical is the education of young people about sexual and reproductive health issues and comprehensive sexuality education through advocacy networks at the national and local levels. Thus, the key is to provide accurate, timely, and non-judgmental sexual and reproductive health and rights information to young people irrespective of the prevailing age of consent. This provision will empower them to make informed decisions about their sexual and reproductive health.

scholarly journals Prevalence of child marriage and its impact on fertility outcomes in 34 sub-Saharan African countries

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanni Yaya ◽  
Emmanuel Kolawole Odusina ◽  
Ghose Bishwajit
Keyword(s):  
Pregnancy Termination ◽  
Binary Logistic Regression ◽  
Adverse Outcomes ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Child Marriage ◽  
Modern Contraceptive ◽  
Contraceptive Methods ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Children Ever Born

Abstract Background The issue of child marriage is a form of human rights violation among young women mainly in resource-constrained countries. Over the past decades, child marriage has gained attention as a threat to women’s health and autonomy. This study explores the prevalence of child marriage among women aged 20–24 years in sub-Saharan Africa countries and examines the association between child marriage and fertility outcomes. Methods Latest DHS data from 34 sub-Saharan African countries were used in this study. Sixty thousand two hundred and fifteen women aged 20–24 years were included from the surveys conducted 2008–2017. The outcome variables were childbirth within the first year of marriage (early fertility), first preceding birth interval less than 24 months (rapid repeat of childbirth), unintended pregnancy, lifetime pregnancy termination, the use of modern contraceptive methods, lifetime fertility and any childbirth. The main explanatory variable was child marriage (< 18 years) and the associations between child marriage and fertility outcomes were examined from the ever-married subsample to estimate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% CIs using binary logistic regression models. Results In the study population, the overall prevalence of women who experience child marriage was 54.0% while results showed large disparities across sub-Saharan African countries ranging from 16.5 to 81.7%. The prominent countries in child marriage were; Niger (81.7%), Chad (77.9%), Guinea (72.8%), Mali (69.0%) and Nigeria (64.0%). Furthermore, women who experience child marriage were 8.00 times as likely to have ≥3 number of children ever born (lifetime fertility), compared to women married at ≥18 years (OR = 8.00; 95%CI: 7.52, 8.46). Women who experience child marriage were 1.13 times as likely to use modern contraceptive methods, compared to adult marriage women (OR = 1.13; 95%CI: 1.09, 1.19). Those who married before the legal age were 1.27 times as likely to have lifetime terminated pregnancy, compared to women married at ≥18 years (OR = 1.27; 95%CI: 1.20, 1.34). Also women married at < 18 years were more likely to experience childbirth, compared to women married later (OR = 5.83; 95%CI: 5.45, 6.24). However, women married at < 18 years had a reduction in early childbirth and a rapid repeat of childbirth respectively. Conclusion Implementing policies and programmmes against child marriage would help to prevent adverse outcomes among women in sub-Saharan Africa. Also, social change programmes on child-marriage would help to reduce child marriage, encourage the use of modern contraceptive, which would minimize lifetime terminated pregnancy and also children ever born.

scholarly journals Reconciling agriculture, carbon and biodiversity in a savannah transformation frontier

2016 ◽  
Vol 371 (1703) ◽  
pp. 20150316 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. D. Estes ◽  
T. Searchinger ◽  
M. Spiegel ◽  
D. Tian ◽  
S. Sichinga ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Crop Yields ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Transportation Costs ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Agricultural Expansion ◽  
Potential Yield ◽  
Cropland Area ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Environmental Objectives ◽  
Sub Saharan

Rapidly rising populations and likely increases in incomes in sub-Saharan Africa make tens of millions of hectares of cropland expansion nearly inevitable, even with large increases in crop yields. Much of that expansion is likely to occur in higher rainfall savannas, with substantial costs to biodiversity and carbon storage. Zambia presents an acute example of this challenge, with an expected tripling of population by 2050, good potential to expand maize and soya bean production, and large areas of relatively undisturbed miombo woodland and associated habitat types of high biodiversity value. Here, we present a new model designed to explore the potential for targeting agricultural expansion in ways that achieve quantitatively optimal trade-offs between competing economic and environmental objectives: total converted land area (the reciprocal of potential yield); carbon loss, biodiversity loss and transportation costs. To allow different interests to find potential compromises, users can apply varying weights to examine the effects of their subjective preferences on the spatial allocation of new cropland and its costs. We find that small compromises from the objective to convert the highest yielding areas permit large savings in transportation costs, and the carbon and biodiversity impacts resulting from savannah conversion. For example, transferring just 30% of weight from a yield-maximizing objective equally between carbon and biodiversity protection objectives would increase total cropland area by just 2.7%, but result in avoided costs of 27–47% for carbon, biodiversity and transportation. Compromise solutions tend to focus agricultural expansion along existing transportation corridors and in already disturbed areas. Used appropriately, this type of model could help countries find agricultural expansion alternatives and related infrastructure and land use policies that help achieve production targets while helping to conserve Africa's rapidly transforming savannahs. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Tropical grassy biomes: linking ecology, human use and conservation’.

scholarly journals Infrastructure for Agricultural & Rural Development in Sub Saharan Africa: Need for a Comprehensive Program and Adequate Investment

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Nwauwa Linus OnyekaEzealaji
Keyword(s):  
Agricultural Development ◽  
Crop Yields ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Strong Relationship ◽  
Farming System ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Trading Systems ◽  
Rural Infrastructure ◽  
Sub Saharan

This study unanimously confirms that rural infrastructure is a sine qua non for significantly improving the quality of human life and phenomenally accelerating the process of agricultural development in Africa. Infrastructure projects, however, involve huge initial capital investments, long gestation periods, high incremental capital output ratio, high risk, and low rate of returns on investments. Rural infrastructure has direct and strong relationship with farmers’ access to institutional finance and markets, and increasing crop yields, thereby promoting agricultural growth. Agricultural infrastructure has the potential to transform the existing traditional agriculture or subsistence farming into a most modern, commercial and dynamic farming system in Sub Saharan Africa. Increase in investment of agricultural infrastructure leads to increase in output and employment, a full investment formulation that meets the needs of domestic or external (multilateral and bilateral) funding sources will have to be carried out. Overall, a flexible, participatory approach will be needed, with full national and local involvement and commitment, while international partners, including Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), give initial assistance to New partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) in this process. The paper therefore recommends that technical and financial assistance will be required to help build capacity in African countries to face the challenges and take full advantage of the opportunities flowing from the multilateral trading systems.

scholarly journals Child Marriage: A Discussion Paper

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 8-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tahera Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Child Marriage ◽  
Discussion Paper ◽  
Life Threatening ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Set Up

Child marriage is still a massive problem in many developing countries. The issue is more concentrated in countries of Sub Saharan Africa and South Asia. This paper, through literature review attempts to assess the situation, the consequences, various programmes and recommendations on the reduction of child marriage. In this article it is reinforced that, consequences of child marriage put the girls at risk of early pregnancies with life-threatening conditions. This paper suggests that each country should set up its own mid-term and long-term goals to bring about significant reduction in child marriages.

scholarly journals Application of secondary nutrients and micronutrients increases crop yields in sub-Saharan Africa

2017 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Job Kihara ◽  
Gudeta Weldesemayat Sileshi ◽  
Generose Nziguheba ◽  
Michael Kinyua ◽  
Shamie Zingore ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Crop Yields ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Sub Saharan

Climate Change, Agriculture, and Famine

Heat Advisory ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan H. Lockwood
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Critical Temperature ◽  
Crop Yields ◽  
Nutrient Content ◽  
Hay Fever ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Normal Intelligence ◽  
Temperature Thresholds ◽  
The World ◽  
Sub Saharan

Hotter weather and higher atmospheric CO2 levels will have profound effects on plants. Crops such as corn and soybeans, have critical temperature thresholds above which yields fall precipitously. High CO2 levels will foster the growth of many weeds over crops, threatening yields. Stimulated growth and release of ragweed allergens will threaten hay fever sufferers and asthmatics. The nutrient content of many crops falls in a high CO2 environment. As crop yields fall, prices rise, and undernutrition increases, particularly among children who fail to develop normally who, as a result, may not achieve normal intelligence. In many nations, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, childhood undernutrition already approaches 50%. Feeding the increasing population of the world may become problematic.

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