Economic and Health Costs of Child Marriages in India

Abstract

Although, child marriages, marrying girls and boys before completion of their 18 years of age, has been recognized as a human right violation, they are still practiced widely affecting 15 million girls per year globally. Economic considerations are fundamental to the prevalence of child marriages as poverty is both a cause and consequence of child marriages. Child marriages can hamper girls’ educational attainment and her chances to participate in labor force. Child brides can have negative general and pregnancy-related health outcomes because of early marriage and early childbearing. The isolation and violence inflicted upon the girls can further have physical and psychological health impacts. Apart, from the individual level outcomes child marriages can have household level and in turn national level impacts too. So, our study has following objectives: (i) To examine the levels and trends of child marriages in India and its states. (ii) To assess the demographic and health costs of child marriages in India. (iii) To study the effects of child marriages on women wages and household economic status. (iv) To measure the impact of child marriages on the economic status of the State. The main data source of the study is IHDS 2 (2011-12). The study used univariate, bivariate and multivariate analysis. Our findings show that current levels of child marriages are significantly high in India with variations across different regions of the country. Our cost estimations revealed that nearly 100 million additional pregnancies occurred for the total ever-married women as on 1st March, 2011, because of child marriages. Also, there were 27 thousand additional neonatal deaths, 55 thousand additional infant deaths and 1.6 lakh child deaths in 2011, due to child marriages. Further, it was found that there are 6.3 million additional underweight women alive as on 1st March, 2011 because of child marriages. Women married below the age of 18 years have less likelihood of completing secondary and higher secondary schooling. Also, the annual wage rates of the child brides were found to be almost half than the women married at 18 years and above and the household economic status of child brides was poorer. child marriages have negative consequences on the macro-level economic status of the country. According to our cost estimates, India incurred loss of nearly 1899 billion INR, which is almost 1.68 percent of total GDP of India.