English

Abstract

Despite the national and international efforts to reduce marriage at earlier age, significant proportion of girls in Bangladesh still marry before reaching legal age of marriage. The aim of this study was to identify the individual-, community- and household- level predictors of early marriage by using the nationally representative data sets to achieve the national picture. This study analyzed the data of 16,830 women extracted from Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey, 2014 of which 12,740 (75.04%) were getting early marriage. Frequency distribution was used to describe the background characteristics of respondents. Statistically significant determinates of early marriage were calculated by using the Chi-square test. To examine the association between individual-, community- and household level Characteristics of early marriage, I used a series of multivariate regression models with accounting complex survey design. I found respondents education, partner education, respondent socioeconomic condition, region of residence, place of residence, husband occupation, religion and types of family as an important factors of early marriage by Chi-square test. The results of the multivariate logistic regression analysis indicate women with lower education, rural place of residence, women in Rangpur, Rajshai, Barisal and Khulna division, and women in the Muslim community were the greater risk of being early marriage. Additionally, partner lower education, partner lower age, and partner physical and agricultural worker involvement were positively associated with early marriage. Increasing social awareness about the adverse effect of early marriage and protective government law are important to reduce number of early marriage in Bangladesh.   Key words: Early marriage, adverse effect, predictors factors, multivariate logistic regression analysis, Bangladesh