Social Norms, Agency, and Marriage Aspirations in Malawi.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

We evaluate whether community norms, caregiver beliefs, and adolescents' own beliefs and perceptions, focused on early marriage, predict adolescent marriage aspirations in a low-income context.

Background

The processes that contribute to adolescent marriage aspiration formation have received little attention in low-income contexts, particularly sub-Saharan Africa. Understanding how marriage aspirations are formed is important because they are associated with critical education and health outcomes.

Method

Using data that links Malawian adolescents (N=2,089) with their caregivers (N=1,452), we analyze gender stratified ordered logistic regression models to examine key relationships.

Results

We show that community norms for youngest acceptable marriage a

SUBMITTER: Zahra F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8680532 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature