Intergenerational education effect of child marriage in marginal settlements of Nepal

Abstract This paper examines the intergenerational effect of child marriage on education. While most of the literature focuses on child marriage generations, the spillover effects on offspring require close attention to terminate the endless loop of child marriage-related issues. By employing coarsened exact matching (CEM), the authors analyse how child marriage impacts the education of the offspring of child-married mothers in marginal areas in Nepal. This study utilises the Nepal Marginal Settlements Survey: Household 2014/15 data set, with a finalised sample size of 2681 children. The authors use ‘overage’ as an outcome variable to reflect the comprehensive education attainment situation. In this paper, ‘overage’ refers to the difference between students’ observed age and the standard schooling age of his or her current grade defined by Nepal’s government. The estimated results show that being born to a mother married before 18 years of age increases female children’s overage by 0.352 years and male children’s overage by 0.498 years. This intergenerational effect of child marriage on education differs distinctly by gender. The effect becomes more severe as the marriage age of the mother decreases.