Challenges in Changing Social Norms: Evidence from Interventions Targeting Child Marriage in Ethiopia

We study a set of interventions in Ethiopia geared towards eliminating child marriage. The interventions facilitate community discussion about child marriage and provide economic incentives for girls to stay in school and remain unmarried. Changing social norms is often thought of as very difficult, and if there is a marriage penalty to being among the first to deviate to an older age of marriage, raising the typical age at first marriage could be especially challenging. Regardless, using weighting and a difference-in-differences approach, we find that both interventions reduce the probability a girl from 8 to 17 years old has been married by about 4 to 7 percentage points. We observe some positive spillover effects: the program appears to have increased the intra-household decision-making power of women. However, we also find suggestive evidence of increased polarisation in beliefs about child marriage, including some possible backlash especially among men. No robust effects were seen on education outcomes, suggesting that, in contrast to other studies, this was not the mechanism through which the intervention had an effect.

Automated summary

Interventions in Ethiopia aimed at eliminating child marriage by facilitating community discussion and providing economic incentives have shown some success in reducing marriage rates among girls aged 8-17 and increasing women's decision-making power within households. However, there are also potential negative effects, such as increased polarization of beliefs about child marriage.