Meta-synthesis and meta-analysis of evidence on child marriage in South Asia

Summary & Objectives

This report synthesises and quantitatively analyses evidence on interventions aimed at preventing child marriage in South Asia between 2010 and 2024. Drawing on 65 studies across eight countries, it assesses what works, under what conditions, and to what extent different intervention approaches reduce child marriage or delay age at marriage. The study seeks to strengthen evidence-based programming by identifying effective intervention typologies, estimating average effect sizes where data allow, and highlighting gaps related to sustainability, scalability, and context sensitivity to inform future investments under UNICEF and UNFPA’s Global Programme to End Child Marriage.

Findings

The evidence base is uneven, with most studies concentrated in India and Bangladesh and limited rigorous evaluation elsewhere.

Interventions addressing social norms show consistent and statistically significant reductions in child marriage, especially when combined with girls’ empowerment and sexual and reproductive health components. Conditional cash transfers reduce child marriage when they explicitly incentivise delayed marriage, but economic interventions without such conditions can have neutral or even adverse effects.

Education interventions reduce child marriage, particularly when they improve learning outcomes rather than simply school attendance, though combining education with other approaches does not always amplify impact. Girls’ empowerment interventions contribute to reductions in child marriage, but their effectiveness depends heavily on family and community receptiveness.

Sexual and reproductive health components strengthen multi-sectoral programmes but rarely show standalone effects. Law and policy interventions alone show little measurable impact, largely due to weak enforcement and limited attention to underlying social and economic drivers. Across typologies, evidence on sustainability and long-term effects remains thin, and results vary by age, poverty status, location, and programme intensity

Recommendations

Future programming should prioritise integrated, multi-component interventions that combine social norms change with empowerment, education, economic incentives, and sexual and reproductive health. Cash transfer programmes should include explicit conditions related to delaying marriage and be paired with norms-shifting strategies to avoid unintended consequences. Education interventions should focus on learning quality and pathways to economic opportunity rather than attendance alone. Law and policy efforts must move beyond legislation to enforcement, accountability, and alignment with community-level change. Stronger monitoring and evaluation are essential, including longitudinal designs, mixed-methods approaches, and clearer theories of change, to build a more robust and generalisable evidence base. Sustainability and scalability should be embedded from the outset through government ownership, cost analysis, and long-term follow-up