Has child marriage declined in sub‐Saharan Africa? An analysis of trends in 31 countries

The study used data from Demographic and Health Surveys in 31 countries to measure trends in child marriage over time.

Age at marriage is rising throughout sub-Saharan Africa. The singulate mean age at marriage is now greater than 18 in the vast majority of countries in the region and in all of the countries included in our analysis (United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division 2015). Even so, sub-Saharan Africa has the highest rates of child marriage in the world, and previous studies have estimated that more than half of girls marry before age 18 in many countries in the region (Singh and Samara 1996; Mensch, Singh, and Casterline 2006). Measuring trends in the prevalence of child marriage over time is important for understanding where the practice is most common and for evaluating the effectiveness of efforts to eliminate it. However, measuring age at marriage in sub-Saharan Africa is difficult. Unlike Western marriages, which are often unambiguously dated by a ceremony, the signing of legal documents, and civil registration, marriage in sub-Saharan Africa is often described as a process consisting of multiple stages including legitimized sexual relations, cohabitation, and ceremonies. The process can be lengthy and the various stages occur in different sequences across ethnic and social groups (van de Walle and Meekers 1994; Locoh 1994; Arnaldo 2004). If several events are required to solidify a union, it may be unclear when the union was formalized.