Child Marriage, Adolescent Childbearing, and Risks of Obesity and Depression among Middle-Aged Women in Rural Mozambique

Kriti Vikram, National University of Singapore
Suhyoon Choi, National University of Singapore
Victor Agadjanian, Department of Sociology and the International Institute University of California - Los Angeles
Sarah R. Hayford, Ohio State University

Child marriage remains a persistent issue with enduring consequences for the well-being of women. This paper aims to explore the influence of child marriage and its consequences - adolescent childbearing and subsequent fertility - on the body mass index (BMI) and depressive symptoms of women in rural Mozambique using Wave 6 of Men’s Migrations and Women’s Lives panel (2023). We posit that child marriage leads to a cascade of stressors that accumulate over time and contribute to higher BMI and depressive symptoms among women over the life course. Our study employs multivariate regression analysis to examine the associations of child marriage and teenage childbearing with BMI and depressive symptoms. The results indicate a positive association between child marriage and teenage childbearing and BMI. Additionally, we find that higher fertility and teenage motherhood, recognized consequences of child marriage, are associated with depressive symptoms, net of other factors. For the conference, we will expand our analysis to include the entire panel, i.e., six waves covering a period of 2006 to 2023, and will add other measures of adiposity, such as the waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio.

Keywords: Health and Morbidity, Families, Unions and Households, Gender Dynamics, Longitudinal studies

See extended abstract.