Determinants of child marriage among rural women in the West Guji Zone, Southern Ethiopia, 2024: a community-based cross-sectional study

Introduction

Age at first marriage has a significant effect on women’s prospects. Child marriage is a widespread cultural tradition globally and involves the marriage of girls under the age of 18 years.¹ Marriage before the age of eighteen is regarded as a discriminatory practice that violates human rights and exposes women to numerous challenges.² Marriage at an early age is associated with a lower level of education, dissatisfaction with married life, poor physical and mental health outcomes, a lack of autonomy, increased gender inequality, marital insecurity, divorce, a low status of women in society, curtailed economic empowerment, limited access to job opportunities, and a higher fertility rate.^3–5 In contrast, marriage at a later age than 18 years has been correlated with higher rates of female involvement in the labor force, improved mother and child health, more bargaining power, higher levels of education, and lower fertility rates.⁶

A report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) states that more than 650 million women and girls alive today were married before turning 18.⁷ More than half 55.11% of women in sub-Saharan Africa are married at a young age less than18 years old.⁸ Among them, Eastern and Southern Africa is home to about 32%. With 17.3 million early-married women, Ethiopia is the leading country in the region.⁷

Globally, there was an increase in the mean age at first marriage among women between 1995 and 2015 from 22.3 years to 23.3 years.⁶ In Western countries, between 1965 and 2000, the mean age of marriage improved from 24.7 to 28.3 years.⁹ Similarly, the proportion of women married before 18 years of age has declined over the past three decades from 1 in 3 girls to 1 in 4 girls.¹⁰ In Sab-Saharan Africa (SSA) from 1950-2005, there was an increase in marital age of 3.3 years in urban areas and 1.1 years in rural areas.¹¹ Nonetheless, the region as a whole had a 55.11% prevalence of early marriage, with a range of 28.11% in Burundi to 80.77% in Niger.⁸ Similarly, in Ethiopia, the mean age of first marriage among women improved from 14.34 years in 2000 to 15.5 years in 2016.¹² However, Ethiopia remains one of the top ten countries in the world in terms of the number of girls married at an early age.¹⁰

Child marriage is associated with several factors, including women’s education status, employment opportunities, family wealth status, family size,⁸ religion,¹³ living in rural areas, knowledge of legal marital age,¹⁴ marriage decision making,¹⁵ ethnicity, exposure to media,^16,17 lack of alternative options for girls rather than marriage, absence of supporting agencies, social norms, fear of pregnancy,¹⁸ maternal education,¹⁹ lack of awareness of the legal age of marriage,²⁰ feelings of loneliness,²¹ an unsecured environment, conflict within the family, the presence of fragmented families²² and stigma associated with girls’ virginity,²³ which are factors that influence early marriage.

Eliminating cultural practices that affect women’s health, such as marriage before the age of 18 is a national and international concern. According to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5.3, early marriages should cease by 2030,²⁴ and Ethiopia pledged to end under 18 marriages by 2025.²⁵ However, more than half (56.34%) of Ethiopian girls married before turning 18 years.²⁶ Moreover, research has revealed that rural women are more likely to marry at an early age than urban women, and experience the negative effects of doing so.^20,26 Arranged marriages are more common in the research area than love marriages are, which increases the likelihood of early marriage.²⁷ An increase in age at first marriages has been documented over the past several decades.¹² However, there is a paucity of information on whether changes accompany rural women. In Ethiopia, little is known about child marriage among rural women.

Therefore, this research aims to investigate the prevalence of child marriage and its determinants among rural women of reproductive-age. This study has implications for policymakers in designing policies targeting rural girls by engaging local institutions in the study area, such as ‘Haadha siiqee’, an organization dedicated to defending women’s rights, the ‘Gadaa’, a governance organization that formulates and implements laws, and religious institutions to work against child marriage.

Methods

Study setting: This study was conducted in the West Guji zone of southern Oromia. The zone was located 470 kilometers south of Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. The zone has three climatic zones: 37.8% lowlands (desert), 54.2% mid-highlands (Wayne degas), and 8% highlands (Degas). The zone is situated between 500 and 2200 m above sea level. The climatic conditions of the zone are relatively hot, and the annual average rainfall varies between 500 and 1200 ml. The zone has 10 administrative districts (9 rural districts and 1 urban district) and 196 kebeles (the lower-level administrative unit). The zone is bordered to the west and north by the southern nation, nationalities, and peoples region; to the east by the East Guji zone; and south by the Borana zone.

Guji society is an Oromo ethnic group that preserves and practices Oromo traditional institutions such as the Gada system (indigenous governance system) which formulates and implements law. Another is the siinqee institution, which aims to protect women’s rights. Guji Oromo practiced arranged marriages (parents decided on marriage) rather than love marriages.²⁸

The West Guji Zone Administration Office’s 2023 report that there were approximately 2.5 million residents in the zone, 50.4% of whom were men and 49.6% of whom were women. There are 303,636 women of reproductive age living in rural districts.

Study period: This study was carried out from April 1 to May 5, 2024.

Study design: A community-based cross-sectional study design was applied in this study.

Source population: The source population for this study included all women of reproductive age (15-49 years) living in the rural districts of the West Guji zone.

Study population: The study population for this study include randomly selected women of reproductive age (15-49 years) living in selected Kebeles of the West Guji zone more than six months and who were available in their residential home during the study period from April 1 to May 5, 2024.

Inclusion criteria: Women of reproductive-age who were married and lived in selected Kebele for more than six months were included in the study.

Exclusion criteria: Women who were sick, had mental or hearing impairments, were in cohabiting relationships, and who did not stay for more than six months in selected Kebele were excluded.

Results

Sociodemographic characteristics of the women

In this study, 711 women were interviewed and the response rate was 100%. The mean marital age of the surveyed women was 17.5 ± (2.456 SD), and the median was 18 ± (3 IQR). The minimum and maximum ages at first marriage were 13 and 25 years, respectively. In terms of the respondents’ marital status, the majority of the women 682 (95.9%) were in a union, whereas a few of them 20 (2.8%) divorced. With respect to the participants’ level of education, 333 (46.8%) had a primary level of education, and only 37(4.9%) had attained a higher level of education, college education or above. The majority of the participants’ parents 464 (65.3%) had a large family size ≥7, and slightly more than half 369 (51.9%) of the study participants had a medium family size of 4-6 members. In terms of family wealth, one-third of the participants’ parents were in the poor wealth category (Table 1).

Table 1. Sociodemographic characteristics of rural reproductive-age women in West Guji zone, Southern Ethiopia, 2024 (n=711).

Characteristics	Frequency (n)	Percent (%)
Participants current age
<20	30	4.2
20-29	354	49.8
30-39	303	42.6
≥40	24	3.4
Marital status of parents
In union	665	93.5
Divorced	24	3.4
Widowed	22	3.1
Marital status of the participants
In union	682	95.9
Divorced	20	2.8
Widowed	9	1.3
Ethnicity
Oromo	574	80.7
Amhara	33	4.7
Others (Gedio, Burji)	104	14.6
Religion
Orthodox	107	15
Muslim	147	20.7
Protestant	384	54
Waqefata	73	10.3
Father education level
Had no formal	461	64.8
Primary (1-8)	186	26.2
Secondary (9-12) and above	64	9
Mother Education level
Had no formal	616	86.6
Primary (1-8)	75	10.5
Secondary (9-12) and above	20	2.8
Participant education level
Had no formal	251	35.3
Primary (1-8)	333	46.8
Secondary (9-12) and above	127	17.9
Participants occupation
Farmer	127	17.9
Housewife	379	53.3
Merchant	125	17.6
Others (daily worker, government employee)	80	11.3
Parents family size
1-3	17	2.4
4-6	230	32.3
≥7	464	65.3
Participants family size
1-3	174	24.5
4-6	369	51.9
≥7	168	23.6
Wealth Index
Poor	237	33.33
Middle	237	33.33
Rich	237	33.33

Among the interviewed women, nearly half 353 [49.6% (95% CI: 0.472-0.524)] had an age at first marriage less than 18 years (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Prevalence of child marriage among rural reproductive-age women in the West Guji Zone, Southern Ethiopia, 2024.

Discussion

This study aims to identify the determinants of child marriage among women of reproductive age in the West Guji zone, southern Ethiopia. The results of this study demonstrated the mean age of first marriage, prevalence, and the determinants of child marriage. In this study, the mean and median ages at first union were 17.5 and 18 years, respectively. This means that almost half of the surveyed women were married before 18 years of age. In the study area, the onset of secondary sexual characteristics (occurrence of menses and breast enlargement) was considered as the criterion that the girls met for marriage. In addition, to avoid premarital affairs and protect girls’ virginity up to marriage, early marriage was encouraged by parents. These results are in line with those of previous studies carried out in Ethiopia, where the mean and median ages of the first union were 17.2 and 17.5,¹³ respectively,and in India, the median age of the first marriage was 18.2 years.³²

However, there was a slight improvement in the mean age of the first union compared with another study conducted in Ethiopia, which reported that the mean age of first marriage was 14.8 years.²⁹ The observed discrepancy is perhaps due to study time, differences in the study population, sample size, and the commitment of the government to eliminate violence against women including early marriage. This implies that more effort is needed to scale up the age at first marriage and achieve the goal outlined in the national reproductive health policy, no gender-based violence, including early marriage by 2025,²⁵ and the SDG 5.3 target.²⁴

The present study revealed that the prevalence of child marriage among rural women was 49.6%. This finding is lower than previous studies conducted in Ethiopia the magnitude of child marriage ranges from 62.8% to 73%.^29,31,33 The difference might be due to population size. The sample size of the former studies was larger. Furthermore, improvement in perceived age of marriage and awareness of legal marital age could contribute to the differences. However, the result was higher than the studies done in Eastern Ethiopia, Harari region (33.7%),²⁰ central region of Eritrea (42%),¹⁵ Egypt (13.22%),³⁴ and Indonesia (12.53%).³⁵ The discrepancy might be due to differences in the study population. Both rural and urban women participated in the previous studies. The study results revealed that there was fear associated with girls’ age, and the reasons for this fear were may face difficulty to marry and age-related stigma. This finding is supported by a study conducted in the Harari region, in eastern Ethiopia.²⁰ This could be because early marriage is a widely accepted and practiced custom in Ethiopia.

Religion was one of the determinants of child marriages. The participants who follow Muslim were 2 times more likely to practice child marriage than Orthodox Christianity followers. This result is in agreement with a study carried out in Eastern Ethiopia.²⁰ This is because religion is the cultural component that encourages early marriage as a means of preventing extramarital sex. Furthermore, Muslims believe that the union of Mohammed and Aisha is the cause of the practices of child marriage. Similarly, family wealth status was a significant predictor of child marriage. The participants whose parents were in the poor wealth category were 4.5 times more likely to marry below the age of 18 than those whose parents were in the rich wealth category. Similarly, participants whose parents were in the middle wealth category were 2 times more likely to marry before the age of 18 than their counterparts. This finding is in line with previous studies^8,30,31 showing parents’ economic status is a potential determinant of child marriage in developing countries. Marriage at an early age is motivated by challenging economic conditions and families pressure their daughters to get married at an early ages for financial relief.³⁶ Another piece of evidence suggests that poverty is closely associated with marital age. Early marriage is viewed by parents as a way to lessen the financial strain of raising and educating daughters.³⁷ This has the implications for improving the living standards of girls’ families and increasing job opportunities for females to increase their age at first marriage.

Despite the legal age of marriage being 18 years old in Ethiopia,²⁵ lack of awareness of legal age marriage was risk factor of child marriage. Participants who were not aware of the legal age of marriage were 2.5 times more likely married before 18 years than those who aware of the legal age of marriage. The finding in line with report from Harari region that not know legal age marriage 4.49 time more likely married age below 18 years.²⁰

The participants whose fathers had no formal education were 2.6 times more likely to marry before 18 years than those whose fathers had secondary education or above. Similarly, those fathers who attended the primary level were 3 times more likely to practice child marriage than their counterparts. This result supported by study conducted in the Amhara region, where the fathers’ education status was significantly associated with early marriage.³⁰ The parents’ level of education has an influence on girls’ age at first marriage.^22,38 This is because educated parents are aware of the negative consequences of marriage at an early age on the prospects of women’s lives.

Participants who made marriage decisions by themselves were 33.4% less likely to marry below the age of 18 years than those whose marriage was decided by others. This finding contradicts a cross-sectional study carried out in the central region of Eritrea, where the odds of early marriage were four times higher for women who had made marital decisions on their own.¹⁵ The difference might be due to sociocultural and population size. The population size in the current study is larger than that in previous study. This finding is supported by earlier studies conducted in Ethiopia^20,31,39 showing that marriage decisions by parents are significantly associated with early marriage. In Ethiopia, parents have a major influence on marriage decisions.⁴⁰

Conclusion

In this study, nearly one in every two women were married before turning 18 years old and the mean age at first marriage was 17.5 ± (2.456 SD). The key determinant factors of child marriage in the study area marriage include religion, fathers’ level of education, exposure to media, living arrangements; awareness of the legal marital age, marriage decision making, and parents’ wealth status. The intervention strategies focus on these factors in order to rise the age at first marriage above 18 years, which can either directly or indirectly improve mother’s or children’s well-being. Improving family income, encouraging female participation in education, increasing awareness on the legal age of marriage, and increasing girls’ autonomy in marital decisions are essential to curve child marriage among rural women in the West Guji Zone. Moreover, the involvement of girl’s families, local elders, and religious leaders is vital to prevent the practice of child marriage in the study area.

Author contributions

SG - Conceptualization, methodology, Data curation, Formal analysis, Software, Writing-Original draft, DW- Investigation, editing and reviewing, and supervision., MD - Methodology, Visualization and Validation.