Challenges in Changing Social Norms: Evidence from Interventions Targeting Child Marriage in Ethiopia

Domaine:

socioeconomic

Créateur:

VinEva

Éditeur:

Oxf

Hôte:

Abstract We study a set of interventions in Ethiopia geared towards eliminating child marriage. The interventions facilitate community discussion about child marriage and provide economic incentives for girls to stay in school and remain unmarried. Changing social norms is often thought of as very difficult, and if there is a marriage penalty to being among the first to deviate to an older age of marriage, raising the typical age at first marriage could be especially challenging. Regardless, using weighting and a difference-in-differences approach, we find that both interventions reduce the probability a girl from 8 to 17 years old has been married by about 4 to 7 percentage points. We observe some positive spillover effects: the program appears to have increased the intra-household decision-making power of women. However, we also find suggestive evidence of increased polarisation in beliefs about child marriage, including some possible backlash especially among men. No robust effects were seen on education outcomes, suggesting that, in contrast to other studies, this was not the mechanism through which the intervention had an effect.

Three Empirical Essays on Child Marriage, Changing Social Norms, and Women’s Life Outcomes

Child marriage remains a major social and development challenge despite ongoing efforts by

Changing Social Norms on Child Marriage through a Legislative Change: A Case Study of the Revised Family Code Enforcement in Ethiopia

The Ethiopian Government took a major step to end the practice of child marriage in 2000 with the re

Child marriage and infant mortality: causal evidence from Ethiopia

Abstract This study assesses the causal effect of child marriage on infant mortality. Using age dis

Changing Social Norms in Somalia: Baseline Report on CHANGES Project Addressing Women Empowerment, Female Circumcision and Early Marriage

Spatial Distributions of Female Child Marriage and Associated Factors in Ethiopia: Evidence from Demographic and Health Survey

Abstract Background In Ethiopia, around million girls were exposed to the risk of child m

How social capital can inform targeting formal social safety net interventions in vulnerable communities in eastern Ethiopia: an ethnographic case study

Abstract Safety nets in Ethiopia are targeted and delivered in a context in which informal social c