Child Marriage and Intimate Partner Violence in Rural Bangladesh: A Longitudinal Multilevel Analysis

Child marriage (before age 18) is a risk factor for intimate partner violence (IPV) against women. Worldwide, Bangladesh has the highest prevalence of IPV and very early child marriage (before age 15). How the community prevalence of very early child marriage influences a woman’s risk of IPV is unknown. Using panel data (2013–2014) from 3,355 women first married 4–12 years prior in 77 Bangladeshi villages, we tested the protective effect of a woman’s later first marriage (at age 18 or older), the adverse effect of a higher village prevalence of very early child marriage, and whether any protective effect of a woman’s later first marriage was diminished or reversed in villages where very early child marriage was more prevalent. Almost one-half (44.5 %) of women reported incident physical IPV, and 78.9 % had married before age 18. The village-level incidence of physical IPV ranged from 11.4 % to 75.0 %; the mean age at first marriage ranged from 14.8 to 18.0 years. The mean village-level prevalence of very early child marriage ranged from 3.9 % to 51.9 %. In main-effects models, marrying at 18 or later protected against physical IPV, and more prevalent very early child marriage before age 15 was a risk factor. The interaction of individual later marriage and the village prevalence of very early child marriage was positive; thus, the likely protective effect of marrying later was negated in villages where very early child marriage was prevalent. Collectively reducing very early child marriage may be needed to protect women from IPV.     

How Far Has Fertility in China Really Declined?

According to births in the last year as reported in China's 2000 census, the total fertility rate (TFR) in the year 2000 in China was 1.22 children per woman. This estimate is widely considered to be too low, primarily because some women who had out‐of‐quota births according to China's one‐child family policy did not report those births to the census enumerator. Analysis of fertility trends derived by applying the own‐children method of fertility estimation to China's 1990 and 2000 censuses indicates that the true level of the TFR in 2000 was probably between 1.5 and 1.6 children per woman. A decomposition analysis of change in the TFR between 1990 and 2000, based on our best estimate of 1.59 for the TFR in 2000, indicates that about two‐fifths of the decline in the conventional TFR between 1990 and 2000 is accounted for by later marriage and less marriage, and three‐fifths by declining fertility within marriage. The analysis also applies the birth history reconstruction method of fertility estimation to the two censuses, yielding an alternative set of fertility estimates that are compared with the set derived by the own‐children method. The analysis also includes estimates of trends in fertility by urban/rural residence, education, ethnicity, and migration status. Over time, fertility has declined sharply within all categories of these characteristics, indicating that the one‐child policy has had large across‐the‐board effects.     

Magic Moment? Maternal Marriage for Children Born Out of Wedlock

To test the existence of the “magic moment” for parental marriage immediately post-birth and to inform policies that preferentially encourage biological over stepparent marriage, this study estimates the incidence and stability of maternal marriage for children born out of wedlock. Data came from the National Survey of Family Growth on 5,255 children born nonmaritally. By age 15, 29 % of children born nonmaritally experienced a biological-father marriage, and 36 % experienced a stepfather marriage. Stepfather marriages occurred much later in a child’s life—one-half occurred after the child turned age 7—and had one-third higher odds of dissolution. Children born to black mothers had qualitatively different maternal marriage experiences than children born to white or Hispanic mothers, with less biological-parent marriage and higher incidences of divorce. Findings support the existence of the magic moment and demonstrate that biological marriages were more enduring than stepfather marriages. Yet relatively few children born out of wedlock experienced stable, biological-parent marriages as envisioned by marriage promotion programs.     

How female education affects reproductive behavior in urban Pakistan

Although Pakistan remains in a pretransitional stage (contraceptive prevalence of only 11.9% among married women in 1992), urban women with post-primary levels of education are spearheading the gradual move toward fertility transition. Data collected in the city of Karachi in 1987 were used to determine whether the inverse association between fertility and female education is attributable to child supply variables, demand factors, or fertility regulation costs. Karachi, with its high concentration of women with secondary educations employed in professional occupations, has a contraceptive prevalence rate of 31%. Among women married for less than 20 years, a 10-year increment in education predicts that a woman will average two-fifths of a child less than other women in the previous 5 years. Regression analysis identified 4 significant intervening variables in the education-fertility relationship: marriage duration, net family income, formal sector employment, and age at first marriage. Education appears to affect fertility because it promotes a later age at marriage and thus reduces life-time exposure to the risk of childbearing, induces women to marry men with higher incomes (a phenomenon that either reduces the cost of fertility regulation or the demand for children), leads women to become employed in the formal sector (leading to a reduction in the demand for children), and has other unspecified effects on women's values or opportunities that are captured by their birth cohort. When these intervening variables are held constant, women's attitude toward family planning loses its impact on fertility, as do women's domestic autonomy and their expectations of self-support in old age. These findings lend support to increased investments in female education in urban Pakistan as a means of limiting the childbearing of married women. Although it is not clear if investment in female education would have the same effect in rural Pakistan, such action is important from a human and economic development perspective.     

The Intergenerational Effect of Cambodia's Genocide on Children's Education and Health

We investigate the intergenerational impact of conflict on the educational and health outcomes of children born years after the conflict ended by exploiting geographical variation in the intensity of the genocide that occurred during the Khmer Rouge (KR) regime in Cambodia. We find that children of individuals who were of prime marriage age during the genocide and experienced greater intensity of genocide have worse educational and health outcomes. In particular, for each standard deviation increase in the intensity of the genocide, average children's normal grade progression rate decreases by 0.03 standard deviations and average children's height‐for‐ age Z‐score decreases by 0.06 standard deviations. We examine several channels through which genocide could affect children born to survivors after the conflict and find suggestive evidence that the marriage market acts as a channel that transmits the adverse impact of conflict across generations. Our findings are robust to alternative measures of mortality rates and post‐KR internal migration.     

Late Marriage and Less Marriage in Japan

Between 1975 and 1995, the singulate mean age at marriage in Japan increased from 24.5 to 27.7 years for women and from 27.6 to 30.7 years for men, making Japan one of the latest‐marrying populations in the world. Over the same period, the proportion of women who will never marry, calculated from age‐specific first‐marriage probabilities pertaining to a particular calendar year, increased from 5 to 15 percent for women and from 6 to 22 percent for men—behaviors sharply different from those characterizing the universal‐marriage society of earlier years. This article investigates how and why these changes have come about. The reasons are bound up with rapid educational gains by women, massive increases in the proportion of women who work for pay outside the home, major changes in the structure and functioning of the marriage market, extraordinary increases in the prevalence of premarital sex, and far‐reaching changes in values relating to marriage and family life.     

The Effect on Fertility of the 2003–2011 War in Iraq

This article provides the first detailed account of recent fertility trends in Iraq, with a particular focus on the changes resulting from the 2003–2011 war and the factors underlying them. The study is based on retrospective birth history data from the 2006 and 2011 Iraq Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (I‐MICS). Estimates from the two surveys indicate that total fertility remained stable from 1997 to 2010, at about 4.5 children per woman. However, examination of the age patterns of fertility reveals an abrupt shift in the timing of births, with adolescent fertility rising by over 30 percent soon after the onset of the war. A decomposition analysis shows that the rise in early childbearing is due to an increased prevalence of early marriage among less‐educated women. The prevalence of early marriage and childbearing among women with secondary or higher education is relatively low and has not increased after 2003.     

Shifting Childrearing to Single Mothers: Results from 17 Western Countries

We investigate how recent changes in the Western family have affected childhood living arrangements. For 17 developed countries, we use multistate life table techniques to estimate childhood trajectories of coresi‐dence with biological fathers versus other maternal partners. In all countries childhood exposure to single parenting is more often caused by parental separation than out‐of‐partnership childbearing. Both exposure to single parenting and expectancy of childhood spent with a single non‐cohabiting mother vary widely across countries, with the United States exhibiting the highest levels of each at early 1990s rates. The greatest international variations concern parental cohabitation—its prevalence, durability, and the degree to which its increase has compensated for a decrease in the expectancy of childhood spent with married parents. Overall, we find little evidence of international convergence in childrearing arrangements, except that in countries where parental marriage has declined over time, childrearing has predominantly shifted to single mothers.     

Premarital pregnancies and out-of-wedlock births in denmark, 1950–65

Although comprehensive investigation of child spacing patterns requires consideration of those births that were conceived before marriage, detailed data on such births often are not available, especially in the United States. Danish statistics on first births by duration of marriage and on out-of-wedlock births permit evaluation of trends in premarital pregnancies. For the period 1950-65, they point to (1) a rise in the percentage of all brides who are pregnant at marriage; (2) an increase in the proportion of first births occurring within both six and nine months of marriage; and (3) a rise in out-of-wedlock births.The trend for the country as a whole also characterizes Copenhagen, but at a higher level, and this reflects the capital's more urban character, greater permissiveness, and attraction to young migrants. Age differentials indicate that as high as 90 percent of all first births among married women aged under 20 years and over 50 percent of those to women aged 20-24 years are premaritally conceived. The rise in the number of first births among young women largely accounts for the overall rise in the level of premarital conceptions. Compared to its suburbs, Copenhagen in 1965 had higher levels of premarital conceptions. The overall residential differential stems both from higher proportions of such births in all age groups in Copenhagen (but especially those aged 20 years and over) and from the fact that Copenhagen has proportionally more first births occurrinq to women aged under 20 years, the age group in which the rates of premarital conceptions are especially high.     

Role of the social and cultural factors in human fertility in India

During the 1940s and 1950s in India, a relatively low level of fertility of 6–8 children per woman of unbroken marriage is implicated by the social and cultural factors; the fertility was probably depressed by 15–20 percent. An appraisal of the trends over the last 2–3 decades of the pertinent variables—age at marriage (an early and almost universal marriage); the widow remarriage rates; the induced abortion rate; postpartum infecundability (breastfeeding) and postpartum abstinence; the son preference; and the other sexual attitudes and taboos—suggests that during the late 1970s and early 1980s, the fertility enhancing and retarding forces were offsetting each other. But, over the next two decades, the variables responsible for enhancing the fertility level will play a more dominant role than the corresponding fertility-reducing factors. However, the role of induced abortion remains somewhat unclear. For any significant reductions in the national crude birth rate in India during the 1990s, the family planning efforts will have to be considerably accelerated.     

The informal health sector and health care-seeking behaviour of mothers in urban Dhaka slums

Infant and child mortality in Bangladesh has declined in recent years but early death rates remain high among Bangladesh’s urban poor, even in comparison to rates in rural Bangladesh. Although they live close to the country’s leading public hospitals and private health clinics, the urban poor continue to rely heavily on services and advice provided by the informal health sector. This paper examines the use of the informal health sector by urban poor children’s main caregivers, their mothers, and the key role performed by pharmacists in treating these children. It explores the nature of the relationship between the mothers and the health providers and the implications for the broader health system. The study combines in-depth interviews with survey data.     

The achievements in family planning work in Rudong County as suggested by the data of the Fertility Survey]

A 15% random sampling from Rudong County was recently taken to survey fertility rates. 1153 primary units were chosen, which included 160,832 people. Among this group were 57,050 women aged 15-67 years. Topics surveyed included: marriage, birth, contraception, and population structure. Rudong County, among the earliest counties in China to begin the work of birth control, started in the 1960s with birth control education. The natural rate of population increase by the early 1970s had already fallen. From 1974 to 1982 the average rate of natural population growth was 3.8/1000. Reproduction has gone from a rising trend to a stabilized trend. The base of the population structure pyramid has shrunk; the number of youths aged from birth to 14 years has fallen from 35.05% in 1964 to 21.77% in 1982. The number of people who must be supported (the old and the young) has decreased, lessening society's responsibility for them. 29.45% of the total population are over 65 years or under 14. Society's coefficient factor of support has fallen from 66.31% in 1964 to 41.75%. There is a decrease in the number of people marrying at a young age; the trend is toward marriage at a later age. The average age at marriage had risen from 23.81 years in 1980 to 23.89 years in 1981. The fertility rate has decreased, as has the number of offspring per woman. 1 child family is on the rise and multiple children family is on the decline. In 1981 the 1 child rate reached 92.98%, the 2 children rate was 6.63% and the multiple children rate was 0.49%. Prior to 1979 the 1 child rate was under 10%. The fertility rate fell from 136/1000 in the 1960s to 41.5/1000 in 1981.     

Married-Couple Families With Step,Adopted, and Biological Children

National estimates of the numbers of families with step, adopted, and biological children have not previously been developed. In this work, parent types for children in married-couple families were indirectly identified by using marriage and birth dates. Families were then classified by the types of children present. A large majority (79 percent) had only biological children; however, a significant minority (16 percent) had at least one stepchild and 4 percent had at least one adopted child. This analysis provides national estimates of the numbers and characteristics of married-couple families with step, adopted, and biological children.     

Child Support in Immigrant Families

In this study, we use nationally representative data from the U.S. Current Population Survey-Child Support Supplement (N = 28,047) to examine differences in nonresident fathers’ material contributions between children of native and foreign-born mothers. We focus on contributions provided through the formal child support system (whether the mother has a child support agreement and the amount received), as well as support provided informally (the amount of informal cash and whether she receives any in-kind support). We control for a variety of individual and household characteristics, including whether the nonresident father lives in a different state or in a different country. We find that foreign-born mothers are much less likely to have a child support agreement than native-born mothers, but have similar amounts of formal support, once an agreement is in place. Compared to native-born mothers, foreign-born mothers are also much less likely to receive in-kind support, but this difference is completely explained by fathers’ distance from the child. Foreign-born mothers do not differ at all on the amount of informal cash support received from fathers. Nonresident fathers’ residence outside the U.S. is an important mechanism through which nativity affects the likelihood of having a child support order and receiving any in-kind support, but not the amount of formal support (given an order) or the amount of informal cash support. Aggregate comparisons mask important differences within the foreign-born group by mothers’ and children’s citizenship status, years in the U.S., and region of origin.     

Child marriage in India]

Child marriages have been practiced in India for thousands of years. Even though its popularity has now decreased due to changes in law and society, it is still a major problem, causing a great deal of hardship. Even though laws prohibited child marriage as early as 1860, statistics show that, on the average, Indians marry very young (1972: females at age 17; males at age 22 years of age; 34 females and 13 males under age 15). The following are incentives to marry young and have large families: 1) religion teaches that only those with descendants go to heaven; 2) unmarried women are traditionally scorned; and 3) most importantly, economic reasons encourage people to have large families as soon as possible, e.g., male children are encouraged to marry to obtain the dowry as soon as possible and children are considered a source of income in India. Child marriage in India causes the following problems: 1) a high infant mortality rate, as much as 75% in rural areas; 2) an imbalance in the male to female ratio (1901: 970 females/1000 males; 1971: 930 females/1000 males) because women who marry young tend to lose their health earlier; 3) a population explosion: in 1971, the Indian population was found to be increasing at the rate of 225/1000.     

Age at marriage is rising for Asian women and men,according to new data

The social transformations in Asia are described: delayed age at marriage and the proportions marrying. Policy implications are ascertained. The norm for female age at marriage has risen from 15 years to 17-18 years in south Asia, and from 18 years to 24 years and older in east Asia. Men's marriage age has also risen but not as much. Concurrent changes have occurred with fertility declines and small family sizes and lower population growth, with changing roles for women, and with emergent youth subcultures and increased prevalence of premarital sexual behavior. The number of singles is rising and expected to continue to rise. Examples are given of marriage age changes for Nepal and Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, South Korea, and regional totals. Southeast Asian countries experienced less dramatic changes, and changes primarily in the 20-24 year old group (from 30% to 74% of single women). Change for men has been less regular and with less magnitude. In Southeast Asia, the rise in marriage age for men has risen only 1-2 years compared with women. East Asia patterns vary by country, i.e., South Korean increases of 6 years, Taiwanese increases of 4 years, and 2 years in Japan. Single males have been common in South and Southeast Asia, while in East Asia married male teens 25 years are rare. Marriage timing for men is not as closely associated as for women with social and cultural change. Downturns for men follow momentous, temporary disruptions such as happen during wars and periods of migration, while women's patterns are more reflective of structural change. The trend for never marrying is on the increase, particularly for men in Japan (1.1% in the 1920s to 18% in the early 1980s for men 50 years). Women not ever marrying are increasing in Thailand, Bangladesh, and Hong Kong. Never marrying is common in urban or educated populations, i.e., Singapore, Thailand, and Philippines. The implications are a longer gap between successive generations and a shorter period of exposure to risk of conception. Research findings have shown that a 1 year delay in age at 1st marriage reduces fertility by 20% of a child. Schooling delays marriage age as well as marriage laws, but structural and economic changes may be more important than policy changes. Policies affect the status of women and opportunities.     

广东妇女文化素质与生育水平分析

对于不同文化程度的育龄妇女,其生育观念,优生节育知识及在社会和家庭中的角色地位等都存在较大差异,进而影响其生育水平。本文从妇女的婚育年龄,总和生育率,活产子女,生育孩次构成等方面,来分析广东妇女文化素质与生育水平的关系。     

Vladimir Putin on Raising Russia's Birth Rate

The total fertility rate in what is now the Russian Federation has been below replacement level during much of the last 40 years. By the late 1990s it was barely above 1.2 children per woman. There may have been some recovery since: the United Nations estimate for 2000–05 is 1.33. Other reports set the 2004 rate at 1.17. Countries elsewhere in Europe have fertility levels that are equally low or even lower, but the Russian demographic predicament is aggravated by mortality that is exceptionally high by modern standards. Thus, despite large‐scale net immigration (mostly due to return of ethnic Russians from other republics of the former Soviet Union), the population in the last decade‐and‐a‐half has been shrinking: of late by some 700,000 persons per year. The United Nations medium estimate assumes a steady recovery of the total fertility rate to reach a level of 1.85 by 2050 and a considerable improvement in survival rates during that period—notably an increase in male life expectancy at birth of more than ten years. It also assumes further modest net immigration at a steady rate, amounting to a total of somewhat over 2 million by midcentury. Under these stipulations the projected population of Russia in 2050 would be 112 million—some 31 million below its present size. By that time, 23 percent of the population would be aged 65 and older. The government's concern with the demographic situation of the country and its intent to improve it have been manifest in various official statements, notably in the annual State of the Nation Address given by the president to the Federal Assembly (or State Duma). Formerly a subordinate theme (see the Documents item in the June 2005 issue of PDR), the issue constituted the centerpiece of the 2006 Address, delivered on 10 May in the Kremlin by President Vladimir Putin. Policies regarding health and mortality were given short shrift in the speech—road safety, bootleg alcohol, and cardiovascular diseases being singled out as areas of special concern. The president's remarks on immigration are of greater interest: immigration of skilled persons is to be encouraged. They must be educated and law‐abiding and must treat the country's culture and national tradition with respect. The main focus of the address, however, was on the birth rate and policies to be introduced to raise it. (The need for an “effective demographic policy” as seen from the Kremlin was of course also voiced in the later stages of the Soviet era. See, for example, the excerpts from the addresses delivered by then Party Chairman Leonid Brezhnev and Premier Nikolai Tikhonov to the 26th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in February 1981 that appear in the Documents item in the June 1981 issue of PDR.) In detail and specificity, and also in terms of the economic cost of the measures envisaged, Putin's speech is without parallel in addressing population policy matters by a head of state in Europe. The demo graphically relevant portion of the address is reproduced below in the English translation provided by the website of the president's office « http://www.kremlin.ru/eng ». Calling Russia's demographic situation “the most acute problem facing our country today,” Putin terms its causes as “well known,” but lists only economic factors, presumably because these, at least in principle, lend themselves to remedial measures that the Russian government, its coffers now swollen with petrodollars, should be able to provide. His starkly economic interpretation of the problem of low fertility (in Russia apparently taking the form of convergence to a single‐child pattern) may be overly optimistic. Causes of electing to have only one child may lie deeper than those Putin names: low incomes, inadequate housing, poor‐quality health care and inadequate educational opportunities for children, and even lack of food. Putin's proposed policies to attack these problems in part consist of a major upgrading of existing child care benefits: to 1,500 roubles a month for the first child and 3,000 roubles for the second. The latter amount is roughly equivalent to US$113, a significant sum given Russian income levels. Maternity leave for 18 months at 40 percent of the mother's previous wage (subject to a ceiling) and compensation for the cost of preschool childcare round out the basic package proposed. Benefits are to be parity‐dependent, highlighting the pronatalist intent of the measures. Thus the child benefit for the second child is to be twice as large as for the first, and payment for preschool childcare is to cover 20 percent of parental costs for the first, 50 percent for the second, and 70 percent for the third child. Putin mentions “young families” as recipients, but the payments are clearly directed to mothers. (Even the usually obligatory reference to western European–style paternity leave is missing.) The most innovative element of the proposed measures, however, is support for women who have a second birth. The state should provide such women (not the child, as called for in some European precedents) “with an initial maternity capital that will raise their social status and help resolve future problems.” Citing expert opinion, Putin says that such support “should total at least 250,000 roubles [about $9,300] indexed to annual inflation.” Evidently assuming, optimistically, that there will be many takers, Putin says that carrying out all these plans will require not only a lot of work but also “an immense amount of money.” The measures are to be launched starting January 2007.     

Parental divorce in childhood and demographic outcomes in young adulthood

We investigated the long-term effects of parental divorce in childhood on demographic outcomes in young adulthood, using a British longitudinal national survey of children. Our analyses control for predisruption characteristics of the child and the family, including emotional problems, cognitive’ achievement, and socioeconomic status. The results show that by age 23, those whose parents divorced were more likely to leave home because of friction, to cohabit, and to have a child outside marriage than were those whose parents did not divorce. Young adults whose parents divorced, however, were no more or less likely to marry or to have a child in a marriage. Moreover, even in the divorced group, the great majority did not leave home because of friction or have a child outside marriage.     

Economic Growth and Child Undernutrition in sub‐Saharan Africa

Despite recent improvements in economic performance, undernutrition rates in sub‐Saharan Africa appear to have improved much less and rather inconsistently across the continent. We examine to what extent there is an empirical linkage between income growth and reductions of child undernutrition in Africa. We pool all DHS surveys for African countries, control for other correlates of undernutrition, and add country‐level GDP per capita. We find that a 10 percent increase in GDP per capita is associated with 1.5 to 1.7 percent lower odds of being stunted, 2.8 to 3.0 percent lower odds of being underweight, and 3.5 to 4.0 percent lower odds of being wasted. Other drivers of undernutrition, including relative socioeconomic status and mother's education and her nutritional status, are quantitatively more important. This suggests that further increases in GDP will have only a modest impact on undernutrition and broader interventions are required to accelerate progress.