{"id":190646,"date":"2022-06-15T21:01:26","date_gmt":"2022-06-15T15:31:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=190646"},"modified":"2022-06-15T21:03:08","modified_gmt":"2022-06-15T15:33:08","slug":"the-way-to-end-child-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/the-way-to-end-child-marriage\/","title":{"rendered":"The way to end child marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

News: <\/strong>Recently, the government has increased the age of marriage of women in India from 18 to 21 years, as a delayed marriage might offer significant public health dividends<\/strong> and substantive benefits<\/strong> at the individual and societal levels.<\/p>\n

Benefit of increasing age of marriage<\/strong><\/h5>\n

There is a significant association between early marriage <\/strong>and adverse health and educational outcomes<\/strong> of women and their children.<\/p>\n

Early marriage of women leads to early pregnancy<\/strong>. Further, it leads to lower likelihood of accessing ante-natal care, higher risks of maternal morbidity<\/strong> and mortality<\/strong>, poor nutritional status of women and poor nutritional outcome. In addition, it leads to poor educational outcomes<\/strong> of children.<\/p>\n

Is increasing the legal age of marriage enough? <\/strong><\/p>\n

As per NFHS-5 data, about 25% of women aged 18-29 years married before the legal marriageable age<\/strong> of 18. It means that the legally mandated age of 18 has not been complied.<\/p>\n

State-wise pattern<\/strong><\/h5>\n

West Bengal has the highest prevalence (42%), followed by Bihar and Tripura (40% each). Oddly, the decline in child marriage has been paltry at best in these high-prevalence States. At the other end of the spectrum are Goa, Himachal Pradesh and Kerala (6% to 7%).<\/p>\n

What are the ultimate factors?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

The association between child marriage<\/strong> and adverse health outcomes <\/strong>is based on structural factors<\/strong>, which includes, social norms, poverty,<\/strong> and women\u2019s education<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

(1) The social norms<\/strong> compel the parents to begin preparations for a girl\u2019s marriage <\/strong>once she has reached menarche. For example, 39% of child marriages<\/strong> take place among Adivasis<\/strong> and Dalits<\/strong>, 17% among advantaged social groups and the remaining among Other Backward Classes (OBC).<\/p>\n

(2) The poverty<\/strong> plays an important role in child marriages. It is aimed to avoid the burden of the huge costs of dowry associated with delayed marriages. For example, 58% take place among the poorest wealth groups<\/strong>, about 40% of them take place among the middle 50% and only 2% of them take place among the top 10% of wealth groups.<\/p>\n

(3) Education outcomes<\/strong>: Only 4% of child marriages in India take place among women who have completed more than 12 years of education. A significant proportion of child marriages takes place among women with less than 12 years of schooling.<\/p>\n

Is increasing the legal age of marriage enough to improve the health outcomes? <\/strong><\/h5>\n

A mere increase in age at marriage without an increase in education is not going to give good result. For example,<\/p>\n

As per NFHS-5, Around 27% of illiterate women<\/strong> who married before 18 years, and around 24% of illiterate women<\/strong> who married at the age of 21 years are underweight<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

However, women with 12 years of schooling married before 18 years and at 21 years have hardly any difference in underweight<\/strong> prevalence (14% and 13%, respectively).<\/p>\n

Way Forward<\/strong><\/h5>\n

The child marriage is substantially lower among women with a higher level of schooling<\/strong>. Therefore, an increase in years of schooling<\/strong> would increase the age at marriage.<\/p>\n

–<\/strong> Therefore, the government should focus more on increasing education<\/strong> in addition to increasing the age of marriage. If education is not improved, it might adversely impact the poor and illiterate.<\/p>\n

–<\/strong> It would be advisable that women complete education<\/strong> at least up to 12 years. For example, Bangladesh<\/strong> improved women\u2019s education and imparted modern skills to increase their employability, which reduced child marriage and improves health and nutrition.<\/p>\n

The schemes should ease the financial burden of marriage<\/strong>. The eligibility criteria<\/strong> of these schemes should include educational attainment<\/strong> in addition to age.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the absence of an improvement in women\u2019s schooling or skills, a legalistic approach<\/strong> to ending child marriage might become counterproductive.<\/p>\n

Source<\/strong>: The post is based on an article \u201cThe way to end child marriage<\/strong>\u201d published in the \u201cThe Hindu<\/strong>\u201d on 15th<\/sup> June 2022<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

News: Recently, the government has increased the age of marriage of women in India from 18 to 21 years, as a delayed marriage might offer significant public health dividends and substantive benefits at the individual and societal levels. Benefit of increasing age of marriage There is a significant association between early marriage and adverse health… Continue reading The way to end child marriage<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10328,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[212,10498],"class_list":["post-190646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704634376},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10328"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190646\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}