Exploring adolescent girls' involvement in decision-making processes regarding child marriage: A systematic review
Summary & Objectives
This systematic review examines how adolescent girls are involved in decision-making about child marriage and what shapes their autonomy in that process. It synthesises evidence published between January 2014 and July 2024, drawing on 29 studies across 26 countries to describe who initiates marriage decisions, how girls participate, and which contextual factors increase or reduce girls’ agency.
Findings
Across settings, girls’ decision-making autonomy is often constrained, with parents, especially fathers, frequently initiating or pressuring early marriage to manage poverty, protect perceived family honour, or respond to community expectations. Some girls initiate marriage themselves, often as a strategy to escape adverse home conditions, insecurity, or stigma, but these choices are commonly made with limited information and under strong social constraints. Education and supportive parent–child relationships consistently emerge as protective, while entrenched gender norms, limited reproductive-rights knowledge, and economic hardship reinforce early marriage and restrict girls’ capacity to refuse or negotiate marriage timing and partner selection.
Recommendations
The review supports multi-level strategies that increase girls’ autonomy while shifting the environments that restrict it. Priorities include keeping girls in school, strengthening life skills and decision-making capacity, expanding reproductive-rights knowledge, and reducing household economic pressure through targeted social protection. Norms-change efforts should engage parents, community leaders, teachers, and health workers, and future research should test interventions designed specifically to improve girls’ agency and document longer-term impacts using longitudinal designs.
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