Teenage Marriage, Fertility, and Well-being: Panel Evidence from India

This paper uses a unique dataset from Andhra Pradesh, tracking a cohort of children from the ages of 8 to 19 years

Abstract

This paper uses a unique dataset from Andhra Pradesh, tracking a cohort of children who were born in 1994-95 from the ages of 8 to 19 years. The researchers asks 3 questions about teenage marriage and fertility in India.

  1. what predicts getting married during the teen years?

  2. what predicts having given birth by 19?

  3. do the subjective well-being and psychosocial outcomes such as the agency, self-efficacy, and self-esteem of married young women differ from those of their unmarried peers — and to what extent can these differences be accounted for by differing socio-economic status and characteristics of, and investments in, their parental household?

The analysis is novel because such long-term panel data, linking backgrounds and investments in the natal household with welfare outcomes and socio-emotional measures in the marital household, have not previously been available in this setting.

Citation

Singh, A.; Espinoza Revollo, P. Young Lives Working Paper 151. Teenage Marriage, Fertility, and Well-being: Panel Evidence from India. Young Lives, Department of International Development at the University of Oxford, Oxford, UK (2016) 32p.

Teenage Marriage, Fertility, and Well-being: Panel Evidence from India

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Published 1 May 2016