Child marriage rate lower in educated households

Child marriage prevalence rate was lower in households where at least one parent had education beyond secondary level, found a research by the department of Population Sciences of Dhaka University and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

In households, where fathers had higher secondary and above education, the rate of child marriage was 40 percent while it was 76 percent in households where fathers had no education, said Aminul Haque, chairman of the department.

"In households where mothers had no education the child marriage prevalence rate was 74 percent and in houses where mothers had higher secondary and above education the rate was 27 percent," he said.

The research titled "Context of Child Marriage and its implications in Bangladesh" was funded by the Department of International Development (DFID), under the Global Programme on Accelerating Action to End Child Marriage in Bangladesh.

The survey was conducted in 14 districts where 7,163 ever married women, aged below 50 years, were interviewed with parents, husbands, in-laws and their communities between October and December, 2015.

Child marriage rates were high, between 78.1 to 90 percent, in Bhola, Kurigram, Magura, Nawabganj, Nilphamari and Shatkhira. In Chittagong, Dhaka, Habiganj, Khagrachhari and Moulvibazar the rates were low, between 45 to 59 percent.

The ill practice was lower, 23 percent, among women who attained higher secondary education compared to ones with no education, among who child marriage rate was 78 percent.

The study noted that the current Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of the country as per Bangladesh Demographic and Household Survey (BDHS) 2014 was 2.3. However, the objective of the Bangladesh Population Policy 2012 was to lower the TFR to 2.1 by 2015. But one of the challenges of reaching such objective was high adolescent pregnancy which was 31 percent among girls aged 15-19 years as per the BDHS 2014 data.

Under-five child mortality rate was also high among women who married before 18, said Aminul adding that 16 percent of women who married before 18 years experienced death of their child before five years while nine percent of the women married after 18 had under-five child death.

The researchers made a number of recommendations including making of higher secondary education compulsory and school curricula more gender sensitive.