Conference Paper
The Impact of Conflict on Early Marriage in Yemen: A Test of the Insecurity Mechanism
No.
ERF_31_LB175
Publisher
ERF
Date
March, 2025
Topic
J. Labor and Demographic Economics
The Sustainable Development Goals call for the elimination of marriage prior to 18, which leads to a wide range of negative outcomes for women and their children. Progress towards this goal has stalled in the Middle East and North Africa region, and there has been considerable debate about the potential role of conflict and forced displacement in this trend. This study focuses on the case of Yemen, which has suffered from a devastating, decade-long civil war that has plunged the country into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Early marriage rates were high in Yemen prior to the war, but only one study in three governorates has examined early marriage post-2015. The analysis links georeferenced conflict event data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Database for Yemen from 2015 – 2022 to the 2022-23 Yemen Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey. Kaplan-Meier failure estimates are used to describe trends in early marriage accounting for the censoring of marriage age. Complementary log-log discrete time hazard models are then estimated incorporating time-varying covariates for different types of conflict exposure, including conflict intensity, exposure to remote vs. direct violence events, and displacement status. The results indicate that early marriage rates have declined substantially in Yemen during the conflict period. However, variation in conflict exposure is unassociated with the risk of early marriage.
Authors
Maia Sieverding
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences, American...