Girl child marriage in Malda district of West Bengal: analysis of prevalence and socio-economic factors

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the prevalence and socio-economic factors on child marriage in the Malda district of West Bengal using a mixed-methods approach: in-depth qualitative interviews of female victims of child marriage as well as quantitative data collected using structured interviews of women. Quantitative analysis reveals that educational attainment had an inverse relationship with girl-child marriage. This study also found that women who belonged to low-income families were more likely to married-off their daughter at an early age compared to high-income families. The qualitative information indicated multiple themes related to the causes of child marriage such as economic vulnerability due to land erosion, siblings as sisters, and comeliness of girls. The findings of the study suggest that child marriage could be prevented by increasing opportunities for girls’ education and employment. The targeted approach should be made among rural and poor girls to combat the practice of child marriage.

KEYWORDS:

• Child marriage
• harmful practices
• education
• poverty
• natural disaster

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Mr. Pintu Paul for his valuable comments and suggestions in an earlier version of this manuscript. We would also like to thank anonymous reviewers for their critical input in the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

. The author (s) have no conflict of interest.

Access to the Data

The data analyzed in this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. The corresponding author takes responsibility for the integrity and accuracy of the data analysis.

Authors’ contributions

AR conceptualized the study aims and designed the study and assisted with interpretation of the analysis/results and manuscript writing. PC assisted with different parts of the manuscript editing/writing and prepared the final draft of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.