Trends in Early Marriage in Shashemene, Ethiopia

Abstract: Despite the Family Code of 2000 that raised the legal age at marriage to 18 for both sexes; early family formation is still a common practice which affect many children in Ethiopia. Previous research has shown that girls in rural areas are more disadvantaged and suffer the consequences of early marriage the most. The purpose of this thesis is to study the risk factors for early marriage for both girls and boys in an urban area, Shashemene. Also, using longitudinal data, trends in early family formation between 1973 and 2008 have been analyzed with an event history approach. The data were collected as part of the project “Changing Ethiopia: Urban livelihood, gender, and ethnicity in Shashemene after 35 years: A case study”. The discrete-time complementary log-log regression estimates have provided evidence of gender inequality in early marriage formations, showing that girls are more prone to experience early marriage than boys. While area of birth (rural-urban) has no direct impact on the risk of early marriage, it is found that living in an urban area offsets the effect of area of birth, suggesting a selection process into migration. It is also found that school attendance decreases the likelihood of early marriage, while literacy has little effect. Moreover, among people living in Shashemene, religious affiliation has more impact on early marriage risks than ethnic identity and the first language. Finally, there was little evidence on period and cohort effects for early family formation.