The National and Global Fight Against Child Marriage

• In Event: 156 - Section on Global and Transnational Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 09. Race, Class, Gender, and Human Rights in a Global Context

Abstract

Child marriage is seen both as detrimental in many aspects and as a violation of human rights. Despite the visible international engagement in the effort to combat child marriage, scholarly works that examine the factors contributing to the change of child marriage practice have not examined the effect of such international effort. This paper use both aggregate-level and individual-level data from Demographic and Health Survey and Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey to assess the effect of individual attributes, socioeconomic changes, and global cultural diffusion. The results from time-series regression and hierarchical logistic regression models attest to the importance of education and global cultural diffusion on reducing the prevalence and likelihood of child marriage. The findings not only contribute to the understanding of what promotes the abandonment of such practice. The results also advance the theory of global cultural diffusion in confirming its effect on individual behaviors with individual-level data.

Author

• Cheng Tong Lir Wang, University of California, Irvine