Increases in child marriage among the poorest in Mali: ‘Reverse policies’ or data quality issues?

Abstract

Child marriage is associated with adverse outcomes related to women’s well-being. Many countries have introduced laws banning this practice, and a number of studies have evaluated their impact. Scant research has focused on instances where countries have lowered the legal minimum age at marriage, even though such ‘reverse policies’ could result in stalled or uneven progress in eradicating child marriage. Using visualization techniques, regression analyses, and multiple robustness checks, we document changes in the prevalence of child marriage in Mali, where in 2011 the general minimum age at marriage of 18 was lowered to 16. Since 2011, the prevalence of child marriage has progressively increased among women with no education and women living in communities characterized by low local development. We reflect on the role that data collection processes may play in explaining some of these findings and stress how repealing existing provisions aiming to protect girls can have adverse consequences on the most vulnerable social strata.

Keywords:

• child marriage
• policies and laws
• education
• data quality
• SDGs
• Mali

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Ewa Batyra is based at the Centre for Demographic Studies (CED-CERCA), Spain, and the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Germany. Luca Maria Pesando is based in the Division of Social Science, New York University Abu Dhabi in the UAE and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs (WCFIA), Harvard University, USA.

2 Please direct all correspondence to Ewa Batyra, Centre for Demographic Studies (CED-CERCA), Carrer de Ca n’Altayó, Edifici E2, 08193, Barcelona, Spain; or by Email: [email protected] and [email protected]

3 We acknowledge support of the University of Pennsylvania through the Global Family Change (GFC) Project (NSF Grant 1729185, PIs: Kohler & Furstenberg). Ewa Batyra acknowledges funding from the Max Planck Society and the Centre for Demographic Studies: Juan de la Cierva Individual Fellowship (FJC2019-040652-I), GLOBFAM (RTI2018-096730-B-I00), and MINEQ (H2020-ERC-2020-STG-GA-948557-MINEQ). Luca Maria Pesando acknowledges support from the Insight Development Grant (Fund #: 430-2021-00147) awarded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada (PI: Pesando), the Jacobs Foundation Research Fellowship Program (2021-1417-00), the Division of Social Science at New York University Abu Dhabi (76-71240-ADHPG-AD405), and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard. The authors are grateful for useful comments and suggestions received during the 2021 International Population Conference (IPC) and the 2022 Population Association of America (PAA) annual meeting. Colleagues at McGill University provided particularly helpful suggestions. The authors would also like to thank Dr Bruce Whitehouse for providing rich and valuable feedback and reading resources on the Malian context.