Does ending child marriage in India require a micro-level lens: Deconstructing the socio-economic inequalities through CART analysis?

Singh Shivendra, UNFPA
Sanjay Kumar, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)
Jaydeep Biswas, Chief, Policy and Partnerships, UNFPA

Child marriage, a violation of human rights, continues to disproportionately affect marginalized girls in India, reinforcing poverty, limiting education, and worsening health and well-being. In India, though the child marriage reduced from 47% in 2005-06 to 23% in 2019-21, stark geographic and socioeconomic disparities persist, complicating efforts to meet SDG 5.3. The practice remains unabated in the country due to deep-rooted social and cultural norms, especially in high-burden states like West Bengal, where child marriage marginally dropped – 52% to 42% during 2005-05 to 2019-21, while Chhattisgarh saw a significant reduction – 55% to 12%. Using the NFHS 2019-21 data, this study employs Classification and Regression Tree (CART) analysis to deconstruct inequalities to identify the furthest behind groups with the highest prevalence of child marriage. The highest prevalence of child marriage (60%) was found among those with no schooling, belonging to poor strata of society, being Hindus, and living in urban areas. Even in Chhattisgarh, a low-burden state, 35% of girls from poor strata, with no schooling and living in rural areas were married before 18 years of age. These results are crucial for shaping the policies to accelerate progress toward eliminating child marriage in India by 2030.

Keywords: Children, Adolescents, and Youth, Inequality, Disadvantage and Discrimination, Gender Dynamics

See extended abstract.