Five decades of early marriage: A research note from the demographic and health surveys

Abstract This paper documents trends and patterns in five decades of early marriage among women and men using data from the Demographic and Health Surveys in 24 developing countries. We present trends in early marriage for individuals born from 1950 to 1995, finding that rates of early marriage decreased from 40% to 30% for women, while the rate of early marriage for men stayed consistently below 10% across cohorts. We correlate age of marriage with age of first childbirth, spousal age gap, completed years of education, wealth, and employment status, showing earlier marriage is associated with younger ages of first births and completing less education. Men and women who marry early are poorer, but there are no large differences in working status by age of marriage.