Education budget savings from ending child marriage and early childbirths: the case of Niger

ABSTRACT

Ending child marriage and early childbirths would reduce total fertility rates and population growth especially in countries with a high incidence of child marriage, early childbirths, or both. Savings for public budgets could be large. This article relies on demographic projections and a UNESCO costing model for the provision of education by governments to estimate savings that could result from ending child marriage and early childbirths for public education budgets. The analysis is conducted for Niger, the country with the highest rate of child marriage in the world.

KEYWORDS:

• Child marriage
• early childbirth
• education
• public budget
• Niger

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• H52
• I22

Acknowledgement

This article was produced as part of the Economic and Social Impacts of Child Marriage study, a joint project of the International Center for Research on Women and the World Bank, with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation. Partial funding has also been provided by the Global Partnership for Education. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author only and need not reflect the views of the World Bank, its Executive Directors, of the countries they represent.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Children’s Investment Fund Foundation; Global Partnership for Education.