Statistical Modelling of First Marriage Age in Afghanistan

Abstract

This research attempted to determine the impacts of the socio-demographic, geographic, economic and husband’s characteristics on first marriage age of women belonging to Afghanistan. The study uses data from the 2015 Afghanistan Demographic and Health Survey (AfDHS). This study focused on 28,848 ever married women aged 15-49 years. Along with the dependent variable “first marriage age”, 12 independent variables are used in this study. Univariate, bivariate, and multivariate regression analyses are used to find how significantly factors are associated with first marriage age. The bivariate and multivariate results show a decrease of about 3 years in women’s first marriage age during past 5 decades. The outcome regarding the highest education level shows that highly educated women marry 2 years later than uneducated women. Other socio-demographic, geographical and husband’s characteristics also show a significant relationship with first marriage age. The wives of highly educated men have higher mean first marriage age than those of the uneducated husbands. Though economic status of women is an important determinant of first marriage age but in case of Afghanistan it did not show any significant association with first marriage age.