Exploring the impact of perceived early marriage on women’s education and employment in Bangladesh through a mixed-methods study

Summary & Objectives

This mixed-methods study examines how women in Bangladesh perceive the timing of their own early marriages and how these perceptions relate to their education and employment status at the time of marriage. Using nationally representative data from the 2017/18 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey alongside in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, and key informant interviews, the study aims to understand why many women who married before age 18 view their marriage as timely and to identify the social, economic, and normative factors shaping these views

Findings

Child marriage remains highly prevalent, with nearly two-thirds of women aged 15–24 having married before age 18 and a mean age at marriage of just over 15 years. More than half of early-married women reported that their marriage occurred at the right time, a perception that was more common among those who were working before marriage and less common among those who were studying.

Quantitative results show that studying before marriage is strongly associated with a lower likelihood of child marriage, while working before marriage is associated with perceiving early marriage as appropriate. Qualitative findings explain these patterns, highlighting poverty alleviation, safety and security concerns, limited expectations of future employment, intimate relationships, and strong social norms around female respectability as key drivers shaping girls’ and families’ acceptance of early marriage. Importantly, even when early-married women perceived their marriage as timely, marriage was frequently followed by withdrawal from both education and employment, reinforcing cycles of economic and social disadvantage

Recommendations

Policies and programmes should prioritise keeping girls in education and ensuring safe, dignified, and adequately paid employment opportunities for young women. Interventions must address poverty and workplace insecurity while strengthening awareness of the legal age of marriage and the long-term consequences of early marriage, particularly among working girls and their families. Efforts to reduce child marriage should engage parents, employers, community leaders, and policymakers to challenge norms linking girls’ safety, honour, and economic survival to marriage, and to create enabling environments where education and work remain viable alternatives to early marriage