Enhancing the Benefits of Girls' Livelihood Initiatives. Promoting Healthy, Safe, and Productive Transitions to Adulthood

This docuent shares case studies from the Council's work (with NGOs such as CARE) on adolescent girl livelihoods during the past decade and summarizes valuable lessons to guide current and future programs

Terms of marriage and time-use patterns of young wives – Evidence from rural Bangladesh

This paper explores the relationship between marriage arrangements and daily activities of young married women, using detailed time-use data from an adolescent study in rural Bangladesh. Measures of marriage arrangement are payment of dowry and the relative wealth status of natal and marital families. The data were collected in three rural districts in 2001 and 2003. Using multivariate regression analysis, the results show that women’s time spent in domestic work, socializing, and self-care is significantly associated with marriage arrangement variables. Those who paid dowry spent more time in domestic work and less time in self-care relative to those who did not pay dowry. These patterns of association are similar to those the authors found in an earlier study between marriage arrangements and domestic violence, where paying dowry and marrying up are associated with greater violence. This paper contributes evidence regarding the non-market determinants of women’s time use patterns and highlights the contribution of marriage-related decisions to women’s well-being.Marriage, time use, Bangladesh, gender, leisure, work

Programs to address child marriage: Framing the problem

Eradicating child marriage has long been on the agenda of the United Nations and of individual countries. Indeed, all countries where child marriage occurs are signatories to international charters and covenants that discourage the practice. Despite these agreements, marriage before age 18—often without the young bride’s consent—persists. Population Council researchers are seeking to prevent child marriage and support married girls in several countries, including Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Ethiopia, Guatemala, India, Kenya, Nigeria, and Vietnam. Programs include expanding opportunities (education, livelihoods) for girls, especially those most at risk of early marriage, and working directly with gatekeepers to remove barriers that prevent girls from accessing those opportunities. Promoting Healthy, Safe, and Productive Transitions to Adulthood Brief No. 14 examines Council programs that have addressed child marriage, including: Kishori Abhijan (Bangladesh), Berhane Hewan (Ethiopia), and Abriendo Oportunidades (Guatemala). Such programs also seek to expand opportunities for girls and limit the constraints to economic empowerment that compel girls and their families to choose early marriage and childbearing

Empowering adolescent girls in rural Bangladesh: Kishori Abhijan

In 2001, UNICEF initiated a pilot intervention to test whether livelihoods opportunities could ameliorate early marriage and other adverse outcomes for girls in rural Bangladesh. Kishori Abhijan (“Adolescent Girls’ Adventure”) aimed to lower school dropout rates, increase girls’ independent economic activity, and raise the age at which girls marry. Life-skills training consisted of enhancing self-esteem and leadership skills and providing education related to gender roles and discrimination, health and nutrition, and legislation and legal rights, particularly early marriage and girls’ and women’s rights. Livelihoods training included vocational skills. As noted in Promoting Healthy, Safe, and Productive Transitions to Adulthood Brief No. 13, the intervention was a joint effort of UNICEF, UNFPA, the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), and the Centre for Mass Education in Science (CMES). BRAC and CMES implemented the intervention, enrolling 15,000 girls. The life-skills component of Kishori Abhijan was later scaled up to enroll more than 250,000 girls in 58 districts

COVID-19-related knowledge, attitudes, and practices among adolescent girls in Bangladesh: Concept note

The Population Council COVID-19 study team is implementing rapid phone-based surveys of a representative sample of girls living in the catchment area of two skills-building programs. The two programs (one with UNFPA, the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs; and the second with UNICEF and the Ministry of Education/DSHE) are affiliated with the UNFPA-UNICEF Global Programme to Accelerate Action to End Child Marriage. The overall goal of the programs is to prevent child marriage. The rapid assessment will explore how the pandemic and associated lockdown is changing girls\u27 experience of schooling, time use, care responsibilities and household scarcity as mediating pathways to child marriage. The objectives are to assess COVID-19-related knowledge, attitudes, and practices; track changes over time; identify barriers to social distancing behavior change; and assess impact on lives and livelihoods. The multi-round survey of 960 adolescent girls includes questions on age, education, marital status, knowledge and attitudes, disruption due to school closing, risks related to violence and mental health, and resources needed during lockdown. In later rounds, we intend to include questions on service access for sexual and reproductive health and rights, stigma associated with disease acquisition, and compliance with social distancing

Does Microcredit Reach the Poor and Vulnerable? Evidence from Northern Bangladesh

Subsidized loans have a history of being diverted to the rich. Yet recently microcredit programs, such as the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, have become popular among donors and governments as a way to channel funds to the poor. This paper uses a unique panel dataset from two Bangladeshi villages to test if the modern microcredit movement is different from its predecessors. Poverty is measured by levels of consumption. Vulnerability is measured as fluctuations in consumption associated with inefficient risk sharing. We find that subsidized credit is largely successful at reaching the poor and vulnerable. The probability that a microcredit member is below the poverty line is substantially higher than that of a randomly picked household in both villages. In the village where female headed households were found to be vulnerable, nearly half of the female headed households belonged to microcredit programs yet only a quarter of male headed households were microcredit members. While restricting loans to the landless is not effective in reaching the poor and vulnerable, targeting female headed households is.

Looking beyond universal primary education: Gender differences in time use among children in rural Bangladesh

This paper addresses gender equity in parents’ educational investments in children in a context of rising school attendance in rural Bangladesh. Using data from the nationally representative 2005 Bangladesh Adolescent Survey, we analyze correlates of time spent in school, studying outside school, and work, using a data set on time-use patterns of schoolgoing children and adolescents. We find that time spent in work varies inversely with the amount of time spent studying at home, while time at school shows no such association. We find support for two hypotheses regarding household influences on education: that time spent in school is insensitive to factors such as poverty and gender; and that time spent studying outside school is strongly influenced by household decisions that favor boys, who appear to have about 30 minutes more discretionary study time than girls

Costs of marriage—Marriage transactions in the developing world

Over the past two decades the Population Council has amassed a wealth of information on the causes and correlates of child marriage and documented its adverse effects on the well-being of women and girls. In many parts of the developing world, understanding child marriage is central to designing programs that promote healthy transitions to adulthood. Council research also underscores the importance of rituals and practices of marriage exchange around the globe and documents the considerable variation in these practices. Promoting Healthy, Safe, and Productive Transitions to Adulthood Brief No. 35 synthesizes some broad themes that have emerged from research on the costs of marriage. Even as customs such as dowry capture popular imagination and media attention, there is surprisingly little academic research or empirical evidence to inform judgment for effective programs and policy. This review highlights several important aspects of marriage transactions

Terms of marriage and time-use patterns of young wives: Evidence from rural Bangladesh

This working paper explores the relationship between marriage arrangements and daily activities of young married women, using detailed time-use data from an adolescent study in rural Bangladesh. Measures of marriage arrangement are payment of dowry and the relative wealth status of natal and marital families. Using multivariate regression analysis, the results show that women’s time spent in domestic work, socializing, and self-care is significantly associated with marriage arrangement variables. Those who paid dowry spent more time in domestic work and less time in self-care and socializing relative to those who did not pay dowry. These patterns of association are similar to those the authors found in an earlier study between marriage arrangements and domestic violence, where paying dowry and marrying up are associated with greater violence

Women\u27s lives and rapid fertility decline: Some lessons from Bangladesh and Egypt

In some of the more traditional parts of the world, fertility is falling steadily, sometimes rapidly, in environments where women’s lives remain severely constrained. The recent experiences of Bangladesh and Egypt, both predominantly Muslim countries, are illustrative in this regard. Since the late 1970s, rural and urban areas in both countries have experienced steady declines in fertility, with recent declines in rural Bangladesh similar to those in rural Egypt, despite lower levels of development and higher rates of poverty. This paper provides an in-depth exploration of the demographic transition in these two societies as seen through the dual lens of society-wide gender systems and a range of relevant state policies. It addresses three basic questions: (1) have measurable improvements in economic opportunities for women been a factor in the fertility decline in either country?; (2) have differences in gender systems at the societal level provided a more favorable environment for fertility decline in Bangladesh in comparison to Egypt, despite the former’s more modest economic achievements?; (3) in what ways can the development strategies adopted by the governments of Bangladesh and Egypt, with their very different implications for women’s opportunities in contexts where personal autonomy remains limited, be seen as additional factors in explaining the similar rural fertility declines despite dissimilar economic circumstances? After reviewing the evidence, the paper concludes that neither differences in existing gender systems nor measurable changes in women’s opportunities have been key factors in the notable demographic successes recorded in these two countries. Indeed, low levels of women’s autonomy have posed no barrier to fertility decline in either country. However, there is a case to be made that Bangladesh’s distinct approach to development, with considerable emphasis on reaching the rural poor and women and a strong reliance on non-governmental institutions may have played a part in accelerating the transition in that environment and in helping women to become more immediate beneficiaries of that process