Abstract
BackgroundBesides, the presence of national law, the country has to set up its own mid-term and long term goals to bring about a significant reduction in child marriages in Ethiopia. As my search concerned, there is no study conducted on the spatial distribution of early marriage in Ethiopia. Determining the spatial distribution of early marriage and factors associated is important for government, other concerned bodies, program implementers, and policy developers to end up early childhood marriage. Thus, this study aimed to assess the spatial distribution and associated factors of Early marriage among reproductive-age women in Ethiopia.MethodsThis study analyzed retrospectively a cross-sectional data on a weighted sample of 11,646 reproductive age women after requesting from Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey 2016. ArcGIS and SaTScan software were for spatial analysis. Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to identify factors associated with early marriage. Finally, variables with a p-value of less than or equal 0.05 were considered as statistically significant.ResultsIn this analysis, about 62.8% (95% CI 61.9, 63.74%) of the study participants were married before they reached 18 years. The overall median age at first marriage was 17.1 with IQR 5 years. The high clustering of early marriage was located in Amhara, Afar, and Gambella Regions. In spatial Scan statistics, 87 clusters (RR = 1.28) significant primary clusters were identified. The associated factors of early marriage were lesser among women’s attending primary (AOR = 0.60; 95% CI 0.51, 0.71), secondary (AOR = 0.19; 95% CI 0.13, 0.26) and tertiary education (AOR = 0.11; 95% CI 0.07, 0.18). Similarly, women found in Addis Ababa were at a lesser risk of early marriage compared to other regions of the country.ConclusionMarriage below age 18 is high in Ethiopia. High-risk area of early marriage was located in Amhara, Afar, and Gambella. Governmental and non-governmental organizations should design an effective intervention in these regions to reduce Early marriage. Therefore, providing educational opportunities to young girls was important in addition to inhibiting the marriage of girls under 18 years.
Highlights
The presence of national law, the country has to set up its own mid-term and long term goals to bring about a significant reduction in child marriages in Ethiopia
Data source The study was based on the Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS) 2016 data set
This study identified the spatial pattern and its associated factor of early marriage in Ethiopia using hot spot analysis and multiple binary logistic regression model
Summary
The presence of national law, the country has to set up its own mid-term and long term goals to bring about a significant reduction in child marriages in Ethiopia. There is no study conducted on the spatial distribution of early marriage in Ethiopia. Determining the spatial distribution of early marriage and factors associated is important for government, other concerned bodies, program implementers, and policy developers to end up early childhood marriage. This study aimed to assess the spatial distribution and associated factors of Early marriage among reproductive-age women in Ethiopia. Marriage is defined as the marriage of a girl < 18 years of age and is a common phenomenon worldwide [1]. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Each year, 12 million girls are married before the age of 18 years [2]. In Ethiopia, the percentage of women marrying before age 18 has declined slightly since 2011 from 63 to 58%. The median age at first marriage among women age 25–49 has increased from 16.5 years to 17.1 years [5]
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