Parents’ assets and child marriage: Are mother’s assets more protective than father’s assets?
Objectives
The study examined how parents’ ownership of assets influences daughters’ risk of child marriage in Ethiopia. It aimed to compare the effects of mothers’ and fathers’ assets using longitudinal survey data and to test whether these associations vary by marriage payment systems such as bride price and dowry.
Findings
Higher maternal asset ownership was associated with substantially lower odds of daughters marrying before age 18, while higher paternal assets were unrelated or linked to higher odds of child marriage. Instrumental variable analyses confirmed that these opposing effects were not explained by unmeasured confounding, and in regions where bride price is customary the protective effect of mothers’ assets and the risk associated with fathers’ assets were strongest. When assets were measured only at household level, these contrasting gendered effects cancelled out, masking important within-household bargaining dynamics.
Recommendations
Policies to reduce child marriage should strengthen women’s ownership and control of assets, rather than treating household wealth as gender-neutral. Economic interventions and asset-building programmes need to account for intrahousehold power relations and marriage payment norms so that additional resources enhance girls’ bargaining position instead of reinforcing pressures for early marriage. Further research should test asset-focused interventions targeted to mothers and explore how changing practices around bride price and dowry modify the relationship between parental assets and child marriage.
Share your research
You can share details of your ongoing and upcoming research to be included in the CRANKs online research tracker. By doing this, you are contributing to a coordinated, harmonised global research agenda.