Determinants of girls child marriage among high prevalence state in India

Pages: 1676-1685
Purnendu Modak (Department of Economic, University of Calcutta, Kolkata, West Bengal)

The present study aims to investigate the various socio-economic, demographic, cultural, and village level characteristics that are important in determining factors for girls child marriage among high prevalence state in India. Binary logistic regression has been applied to analyze secondary data (DLHS-4) of 125549 child married women in India. The results of this study indicate that the individual and household socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, such as place of residence, education, religion, and caste are important in determining factors for girls child marriage among high prevalence state in India. Furthermore, it is also found that the largest drop in the prevalence of child marriage has been in under-15 marriages, while marriages in the age group 15-17 years continue to occur quite commonly in a number of high prevalence state in West Bengal, Tripura and Andhra Pradesh. Moreover, the girls with secondary and higher education had much lower chances of early marriage compared to illiterate ones. Thus, education and early marriage are closely linked. However, Wealth Quintile, village Infrastructure quintile and household with BPL card (or not) are significant factor to be associated with child marriage in rest of India and Tripura but it’s insignificant in West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh. In this context, educational intervention (Balika Samridhi Yojana, 1997) and empowerment intervention Kishori Sakti Yojana (2001) by the Government of India and Kanyashree Prakalpa (girl’s with secondary education, 2012) by the Government of West Bengal could be a good instrument to reduce the early marriage in India as well as in West Bengal.