ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF CHILD MARRIAGE ETHIOPIA COUNTRY BRIEF (CONFERENCE EDITION) MARCH 2018 Page 1 · ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF CHILD MARRIAGE: ETHIOPIA COUNTRY BRIEF March 2018 ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF CHILD MARRIAGE: ETHIOPIA COUNTRY BRIEF OVERVIEW Each day, tens of thousands of girls worldwide are married while still children, often before they may be physically and emotionally ready to become wives and mothers. Child marriage, defined as marriage or a union taking place before the age of 18, endangers the life trajectories of these girls in numerous ways. Child brides are at greater risk of experiencing a range of poor health outcomes, having children at younger ages, having more children over their lifetimes, dropping out of school, earning less over their lifetimes and living in poverty than their peers who marry at later ages. Child brides may also be more likely to experience intimate partner violence, have restricted physical mobility, and limited decision-making ability. Most fundamentally, these girls may be disempowered in ways that deprive them of their basic rights to health, education, equality, non- discrimination, and to live free from violence and exploitation, which continue to affect them into adulthood. These dynamics affect not only the girls themselves, but their children, households, communities and societies, limiting their ability to reach their full social and economic potential. While child marriage is widely considered a human rights issue closely connected to gender inequality1, the significance of the practice’s impacts at both the individual and societal levels suggests that ending child marriage may play an important role in alleviating poverty and in promoting economic development. Ending child marriage can improve health at the individual and population levels, increase productivity and enhance the opportunity to realize the gains in a country’s economic growth that can result from declining birth rates and a shifting population age structure, commonly referred to as the ‘demographic dividend.’ To date, however, there has been relatively little in the way of rigorous assessment of the economic impacts of child marriage or how much child marriage may “cost” countries and societies. To address this challenge, the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) and the World Bank collaborated on an extensive and innovative research project to assess the impacts of child marriage on a range of development outcomes, and to understand the economic costs associated with these impacts across countries. By establishing the effects that child marriage has on economic outcomes, the research project aimed to catalyze more effective and evidence-based action to prevent it. This brief describes research undertaken for Ethiopia to better assess the impacts of child marriage on a range of development outcomes and the costs associated with these impacts. The full country report for Ethiopia, as well as other country and thematic studies and papers, can be requested from the authors. 1 As enshrined in UN General Assembly Resolution 71/175 of December, 2016, “child, early and forced marriage is a harmful practice that violates, abuses or impairs human rights.” Page 1 · ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF CHILD MARRIAGE: ETHIOPIA COUNTRY BRIEF March 2018 CHILD MARRIAGE IN ETHIOPIA The proportion of girls marrying as children is declining “I was depressed and at the global level, and there has also been progress in cried all the time…How Ethiopia in recent decades. Nevertheless, according to the do you think it feels to 2016 Demographic and Health Survey2, more than a third be forced into a marriage of girls aged between 18 and 22 (36.7 percent) still marry before turning 18, and progress towards ending child and a life with someone marriage has slowed down in recent years. Many of the you didn’t choose or cultural, economic and social factors that have historically know? ” contributed to high rates of child marriage in Ethiopia persist, at least in some communities, leading many girls to marry when they reach puberty, or soon thereafter. A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK: Almost one in five women (17.4 percent) aged between 18 THE ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF and 22 give birth before they turned 18, but the proportion CHILD MARRIAGE is only at 2.5 percent before they turned 15. As for child marriage, the rates of early childbearing have declined The conceptual framework guiding this study, based on substantially over time, but they remain too high. The vast an extensive literature review and expert consultations, is majority of births by adolescents in Ethiopia takes place shown in Figure 1. Five domains or areas of impact were within marriage. identified as capturing the core impacts of child marriage on economic outcomes: (i) Fertility and population The international community has become increasingly growth; (ii) Health, nutrition and violence; (iii) Educational aware of the negative consequences of child marriage, attainment; (iv) Labor force participation, earnings and yet investments to end the practice remain limited. While productivity; and (v) Decision-making and other areas. We ending child marriage by 2030 is now a target under the hypothesize that, through these domains, child marriage Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), relatively few influences three main areas of impacts and/or costs countries have adopted comprehensive strategies to end that are measurable at the aggregate level: (i) Earnings, the practice, and investments in programs and policies productivity and consumption per capita; (ii) Private and focusing on preventing and ending child marriage remain public expenditures; and (iii) Non-monetary and social limited. In some respects, the government of Ethiopia has costs. Each of these areas in turn influence broader demonstrated a commitment to ending child marriage development outcomes, particularly the perpetuation of through both policy and programmatic efforts, including extreme poverty and inequality. the adoption of a strategy against harmful traditional practices. Further, Ethiopia is included in a multi-country initiative, coordinated by UNFPA and UNICEF, to tackle child marriage. It is also part of several other initiatives, including large projects funded by the World Bank, which aim to address child marriage either directly or through broader initiatives to empower women and provide education for girls. While these efforts represent good progress in addressing child marriage in Ethiopia, given the very significant negative impacts and high associated costs of the practice, more could and should be done. 2 The analysis for this report was initially based on data from the 2011 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS), but most estimates have been updated with data from the 2016 DHS. Page 2 · ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF CHILD MARRIAGE: ETHIOPIA COUNTRY BRIEF March 2018 Figure 1: Framework for Assessing the Economic Impacts of Child Marriage Domains of Impact Aggregate Measures Development Of Impacts And Costs Outcomes Fertility and population growth CHILD MARRIAGE Earnings, productivity & Health, nutrition and violence consumption per capita Multiple pathways Educational attainment and learning and intergenerational Perpetuation Of Extreme effects through which Poverty And Private impacts are observed & public Inequality Participation in the labor force expenditures and type of work Participation, decision-making and investments Non-monetary and social costs The following sections summarize the main findings IMPACTS OF CHILD MARRIAGE from the Ethiopia country report under the global study across each of the five key domains of impact and their IN ETHIOPIA associated costs. While we refer to many estimates these Fertility and Population Growth as “impacts,” it should be noted that the complexity of Child marriage has a large impact on how many children the interrelationships between child marriage and these women will have in their lifetime and on overall population domains makes determining a clear causal relationship growth in Ethiopia. For example, based on data from very difficult. Thus, these should be viewed as representing the 2016 DHS, in terms of total fertility, marrying at age statistical associations obtained from regression analysis, 13 rather than at 18 or later increases the number of rather than definitively indicating a causal relationship. children a woman will have by an average of 24 percent. Furthermore, the cost estimates included here are not Impacts remain large (13 percent) when marrying at 17 meant to be precise, given the many assumptions involved. instead of at 18 or later. At the national level, ending child They are only meant to convey orders of magnitude. In marriage could reduce the total fertility rate by 13 percent. addition, not every impact has a clear monetary cost, and Considering that the average woman in Ethiopia in the not every monetary cost can be estimated. Nonetheless, estimations will have 6 children, this would result in a the analysis suggests that both the impacts and costs of significant decrease – just under one birth per woman. child marriage are high in Ethiopia, making ending child marriage a worthwhile investment not only for protecting One of the reasons that child marriage has such a the rights and wellbeing of girls and their families, but also significant impact on total fertility is that in many in terms of economic outcomes and development. countries women who marry earlier are also likely to begin childbearing earlier than those who marry later. This is also the case in Ethiopia, where child marriage is the primary cause of early childbearing for more than four in five women who had a birth before turning 18. In Ethiopia as a whole, ending child marriage would not have a large effect on use of contraception at the national level, but results Page 3 · ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF CHILD MARRIAGE: ETHIOPIA COUNTRY BRIEF March 2018 suggest that early marriage has a small negative impact on Through early childbirths, the effect of child marriage on use of modern contraception later in life. the health of the children born of mothers younger than 18 is substantial, particularly in terms of under-five mortality Ending child marriage and early childbearing in Ethiopia or having delayed physical development due to a lack of today would result in a reduction in the population growth appropriate nutrition (stunting). Taking into account a wide rate of 0.10 percentage points, roughly equivalent to four range of other factors, our analyses show that being born to percent of the current growth rate. By 2030, Ethiopia’s a mother younger than 18 increases the risk of death before population would be reduced by one percent if child reaching age five by four percentage points in Ethiopia, and marriage and early childbirths were ended today. This the risk of stunting by 13 percentage point. These impacts would have significant impacts on national budgets and are large, indicating that child marriage has a negative effect welfare. on child wellbeing through early childbearing. However, it is unlikely that ending child marriage itself would substantially TABLE 1: IMPACTS OF CHILD MARRIAGE ON improve the rates of under-five mortality and stunting at the FERTILITY AND POPULATION GROWTH national level in Ethiopia, mainly because at the aggregate Estimated Impacts for Ethiopia level, only a small share of children are born of mothers • Ending child marriage could reduce the total fertility younger than 18. In other words, early childbearing can have rate by 13% nationally significant consequences for child health for those children • Ending child marriage could reduce the share of girls born to mothers before age 18, but there are not enough of having a child before 18 by more than four fifths • Ending child marriage could increase national use of these children to significantly reduce under-five mortality modern contraceptives from 37.8% to 38.6% rates at the national level. Separately, child marriage also • Ending child marriage and early childbirths could leads directly for very young brides to higher risks of reduce population growth by 0.1 percentage points intimate partner violence in Ethiopia, and it may also have an additional impact on intimate partner violence indirectly through its effect on girls’ education. Health, Nutrition and Violence TABLE 2: IMPACTS OF CHILD MARRIAGE ON Child marriage can impact the health of both the girl who is HEALTH, NUTRITION, AND VIOLENCE married early and her children. While a number of factors Estimated Impacts for Ethiopia influence how child marriage influences health, giving • Child marriage is the likely cause of four fifths of birth at a very early age is particularly risky. For the girls births of children to mothers younger than 18 themselves, their physical immaturity may increase the • Ending early childbirths could reduce under-five likelihood of complications during pregnancy and childbirth, mortality by 0.15 percentage points nationally resulting for them in higher risks of both maternal mortality • Ending early childbirths could reduce under-five and morbidity even if ending child marriage and early stunting by 0.4 percentage points nationally • Child marriage is associated with a higher risk of childbirths would not necessarily reduce maternal mortality intimate partner violence for women ratios at the national level. • The impact of ending child marriage on maternal mortality is not fully clear Page 4 · ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF CHILD MARRIAGE: ETHIOPIA COUNTRY BRIEF March 2018 Educational Attainment As is the case globally, there is a strong relationship between child marriage and poor educational outcomes “If she wasn’t going to be in Ethiopia. Child brides are much more likely to have attending school, then dropped out of school than their peers who married later and tend to have completed fewer years of education, both she should at least be of which have important implications for their ability to married. She comes from enter the formal labor force and to earn money once they a poor family; it’s either do so. Parents in Ethiopia surveyed about the reasons their education or marriage. daughter dropped out of school suggest that marriage was What other options does the main reason for dropping out of school for more than one in ten adolescent girls. Once a girl is married, statistics she have? Is she going suggest that it is very difficult for her to remain in school, to beg on the street? So, whatever her age. Our analyses also find that every year of then I decided to have early marriage before the age of 18 reduces the likelihood to her get married.” be enrolled in secondary school by one percentage point, an effect that is smaller than for many other countries but still statistically significant. Together, the analyses suggest that child marriage has a large effect on education for girls. As the quote above indicates, girls often face gender-based constraints to staying in school. Schools may be far away and along routes that are considered dangerous for girls, families may prioritize investments in boys’ rather than girls’ education, and due to a perceived or real lack of opportunities other than marriage and motherhood, some girls become uninterested in remaining in school, with effects that vary in size depending on the survey used for estimation but remain statistically significant. Conversely, continuing schooling helps in reducing child marriage, as girls who are in school are less likely to marry. Our analyses show that each additional year a girl completes in secondary school reduces the likelihood of marrying as a child by six percentage points, and the likelihood or having a first child before age 18 by four percentage points. TABLE 3: IMPACTS OF CHILD MARRIAGE ON EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT Estimated Impacts for Ethiopia • Child marriage is cited as the reason for dropping out of secondary school for more than 1 in 10 girls • Each additional year of early marriage may reduce the likelihood of secondary school enrolment • Each year of secondary school education may reduce the risk of child marriage by 6 percentage points 3 Based on the 2011 DHS. Page 5 · ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF CHILD MARRIAGE: ETHIOPIA COUNTRY BRIEF March 2018 Work, Earnings and Welfare Decision-making, Agency and Other The effect that child marriage has on educational outcomes Impacts affects the type of work women who were married as In addition to the types of effects above, which are easier to children are able to do and how much they earn later in life. conceptualize in terms of economic impacts and cost, child In Ethiopia, we do not find a large impact of child marriage marriage may have negative effects that extend to other on labor force participation3. But we do find that child areas. While the magnitude of the impact on these other marriage lowers women’s expected earnings in adulthood factors is estimated to be smaller, the effects still matter to by nine percent, and that ending child marriage would have understanding the overall impact and cost of child marriage. the effect of increasing earnings for the country as a whole Child brides in Ethiopia are often young, poorly educated by 1.5 percent. These are substantial effects both nationally and from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds. and for the individuals affected. When they marry early, they may fall even more under the control of their husband and in-laws than would be the In general, controlling for household size and education case if they had married later, thus possibly limiting their levels, child marriage may not affect substantially agency and decision-making ability. Across surveys, we household consumption per capita, perceptions of poverty, typically do not find a negative direct effect. However, child and food security. However, because of its impact on marriage may also have indirect effects related to the lower fertility and thereby increased household size, as well as educational attainment of child brides, given that a higher through lowering educational attainment for married girls, education level is associated with a higher decision-making child marriage is likely to reduce household welfare. ability in Ethiopia as in other countries. TABLE 4: IMPACTS OF CHILD MARRIAGE ON Child marriage may also cause psychological stress that WORK, EARNINGS, AND WELFARE impacts girls’ and women’s wellbeing as they grow older. Estimated Impacts for Ethiopia There is some evidence that being married very early (at age • Through education, child marriage reduces women’s 12 or less) may lower women’s psychological wellbeing, with earnings in adulthood by 9% the effect measured in terms of the incidence of depressive • Ending child marriage could increase national symptoms, anxiety and other indicators later in life. Child earnings by 1.5% marriage on the other hand is associated with an increase • Child marriage affects consumption and food adequacy through larger household sizes and in the likelihood of land ownership. The practice is not lower education for girls who marry early and their directly associated with a loss in knowledge about HIV/AIDS. children But again, through its impact on women’s education, child marriage may affect this and other outcomes indirectly. TABLE 5: IMPACTS OF CHILD MARRIAGE ON One of the largest DECISION-MAKING AND OTHER IMPACTS economic benefits from Estimated Impacts for Ethiopia ending child marriage is • Child marriage reduces women’s decision-making ability indirectly through educational attainment related to welfare gains • Very early marriage (at age 12 or less) may reduce from lower population psychological wellbeing • Child marriage is associated with an increase in the growth. This benefit likelihood of land ownership could reach close to $5 • Child marriage is not directly associated with a loss in women’s knowledge of HIV/AIDS in adulthood billion (purchasing power parity) by 2030 Page 6 · ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF CHILD MARRIAGE: ETHIOPIA COUNTRY BRIEF March 2018 ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF TABLE 6: ORDER OF MAGNITUDE OF THE ENDING CHILD MARRIAGE IN BENEFITS FROM ENDING CHILD MARRIAGE – SELECTED ESTIMATES ETHIOPIA Annual Annual Benefit in Benefit in While providing a monetary valuation of all the costs 2015 2030 associated with child marriage is not feasible, we have Welfare benefit $0.1 billion (PPP) $4.9 billion (PPP) estimated costs for some of the largest impacts of the practice, or equivalently benefits that could be reaped Under-five mortality $0.9 billion $2.5 billion by ending the practice. The estimated costs are related Under-five stunting $0.2 billion $0.5 billion to the impacts on fertility and population growth, as well as education and earnings, since these are also the areas (*) Estimates in purchasing power parity. where larger impacts are observed. In some cases, we estimate both immediate gains associated with ending In addition, there would be increasing budget savings to the child marriage and longer-term gains, looking specifically at government, largely because of reduced demand on public the benefits that would accrue by 2030. This allows for the services due to lower population growth. As one example, estimates to account for the cumulative nature of many of when looking just at the education sector, ending child the benefits of ending child marriage, especially in the case marriage and early childbirths could result in savings for of population growth. It also allows valuations to adjust for the government of up to $288 million per year by 2030, if increases in standards of living (GDP per capita) over time. the country were to achieve universal secondary education by that time (this is however an upper bound for potential The welfare benefits for Ethiopia from the lower population savings based on convergence in educational attainment growth that would result from ending child marriage and and cost of provision with other countries). childbearing are very significant. If child marriage and early childbearing had ended in 2014, the estimated annual The strong relationship between child marriage and benefit in the subsequent year (2015) would have been educational attainment has significant implications for the equivalent to $117 million, increasing to $4.9 billion by 2030 earning potential of child brides as they age. This is reflected in purchasing power parity (see Table 6). The rapid increase in gains in earnings and productivity that would have been in the benefits stems from the fact that the impact of child observed today if the women who married as children marriage and early childbirths on population growth is had been able to marry later. In Ethiopia, the value of the cumulative. That is, each year the gains become larger additional wages that women would have earned in 2015 because the cumulative reduction in population growth if they had not married early is estimated at $1.6 billion in keeps growing from one year to the next. In addition, as purchasing power parity. standards of living (GDP per capita) improve, the valuations also become larger. In most countries, ending child marriage would prevent Another large economic child deaths before the age of five and would also help avoid under-five stunting. While the benefits of these gains benefit from ending are not primarily monetary, monetary benefits can be child marriage is higher estimated based on the value of future wage gains for those earnings for women in who would avoid stunting due to the elimination of child adulthood, estimated at marriage, and levels of welfare for mortality. In Ethiopia, $1.6 billion (purchasing these gains are estimated at $0.9 billion in the first year and $2.5 billion by the year 2030 for under-five mortality. For power parity) in 2015. under-five stunting, the gains are estimated at $0.2 billion in the first year and $0.5 billion by the year 2030. Page 7 · ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF CHILD MARRIAGE: ETHIOPIA COUNTRY BRIEF March 2018 HOW LARGE ARE THESE COSTS? To better understand the extent of these costs, we can look at Ethiopia’s net Official Development Assistance (ODA), which includes loans and grants from a variety of sources While this study has looked at only some of the many and which is a key component of international funding for economic costs of child marriage, it demonstrates that development. In recent years, net ODA has amounted to six the magnitude of these combined costs is high in Ethiopia. to eight percent of Ethiopia’s Gross National Income. Our Looking only at the impacts of slower population growth, analyses suggest that by 2030, solely through the welfare education spending, health-related costs and earnings benefits from slower population growth, the benefits losses, we estimate that child marriage could cost Ethiopia of ending child marriage and early childbearing could in the tens of billions of dollars (in purchasing power parity) be roughly equivalent to up to one sixth of the net ODA from now to 2030. received by Ethiopia. Page 8 · ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF CHILD MARRIAGE: ETHIOPIA COUNTRY BRIEF March 2018 CONCLUSIONS Child marriage is widely considered as a violation of girls’ human rights. It curtails the opportunities provided to girls and their children. The primary motivation for ending the practice should thus remain the fact that ending child marriage would alleviate suffering and improve the lives of the girls who marry early and those of their children. At the same time, there is significant evidence of the negative impacts of the practice on a wide range of outcomes for girls and their families, and this study demonstrates that the practice has large economic costs at the national level for Ethiopia. Our hope is that the demonstration of these costs will help generate greater and more focused investments to end child marriage and early childbirths and thereby empower all girls and young women. Such investments are critical in Ethiopia, including to reap benefits from a demographic dividend, which will depend both on a decline in fertility rates and effective investments in youth for the development of the country. While this study does not explicitly focus on interventions and policies to prevent child marriage, the results provide strong support for the promotion of girls’ education, which has been demonstrated in many settings to be effective in protecting girls from marriage while also having other longer-term economic benefits. A number of promising interventions aimed at preventing child marriage are already being tested and implemented in Ethiopia, with the potential to generate evidence on what works to end the practice. Investing in more such interventions, documenting their impacts and implementing girl-friendly policies, including in terms of legislation related to child marriage, will be key to ensuring a better future both for Ethiopia’s girls and for the country as a whole. Page 9 · ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF CHILD MARRIAGE: ETHIOPIA COUNTRY BRIEF March 2018 Recommended citation for this brief: Wodon, Q., C. Male, A. account this provisional character. The World Bank does not guarantee Nayihouba, A. Onagoruwa, A. Savadogo, A. Yedan, A. Kes, N. John, M. the accuracy of the data included in this work. The boundaries, colors, Steinhaus, L. Murithi, J. Edmeades, and S. Petroni (2018). Economic denominations and other information shown on any map in this work Impacts of Child Marriage: Ethiopia Country Brief. Washington, DC: The do not imply any judgment on the part of the World Bank concerning World Bank and International Center for Research on Women. the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. For more details on the analysis and references for the estimates quoted in this brief, see the full report Economic Impacts of Child Information and illustrations contained in this report may be freely Marriage: Ethiopia Synthesis Report available at reproduced, published or otherwise used for noncommercial purposes www.costsofchildmarriage.org without permission from the World Bank or ICRW. However, the World Bank and ICRW request that the original study be cited as the source. The team is especially grateful to Ethiopia’s Ministry of Women and Children, and especially to Mr. Tadesse and Ms. Tsehey for © 2017 The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / the support they provided for this study. The Economic Impacts of The World Bank and The International Center for Research on Women Child Marriage project is a collaborative effort by the International (ICRW), Washington, DC 20433. Center for Research on Women (ICRW) and the World Bank, with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, and additional support from the Global Partnership for Education. This series of papers is jointly produced by the International Center for Research on Women and the World Bank and is available at www.costsofchildmarriage.org. The findings, interpretations and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the author(s) and should not be attributed in any manner to the World Bank, to its affiliated organizations or to members of its Board of Executive Directors or the countries they represent. Citation and the use of material presented in this series should take into Page 10 · ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF CHILD MARRIAGE: ETHIOPIA COUNTRY BRIEF March 2018