Are age-of-marriage laws enforced? Evidence from developing countries

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Collin, Matthew; Talbot, Theodore
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2022.102950
• 发表日期: 2022
• 关键词: Child marriage; tests; Rule of law; Legal effectiveness

摘要

Child marriage is associated with negative outcomes for women and girls. Many countries have raised the legal age of marriage, but the incidence of early marriage remains high. We propose a simple test for whether laws are effective in deterring early marriage and apply it to data from both the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) covering over 100 countries using statistical tests derived from the regression discontinuity literature. By this measure, many countries are not enforcing the laws on their books, and enforcement may be not be improving over time. We argue that survey data provides a simple way to test if laws are being enforced and are binding, and interpret our results to show that legal change needs to be accompanied by better enforcement and greater monitoring to be effective.