2025/09/05 by Anteneh Mengist Dessie1*, Denekew Tenaw Anley1
paper · doi:10.20372/nadre:17260
Background: Child marriage is a harmful traditional practice, which compromises<br> children of their childhood and threatens their lives and health. In Ethiopia, 58%<br> of women and 9% of men get married before the age of 18 years. Surprisingly,<br> parents in the Amhara region make marriage promises of their children before<br> they are even born, which will hinder the region from attaining the Sustainable<br> Development Goal of ending child marriage. Thus, this study aimed to assess the<br> trends, determinants, and future prospects of child marriage in the Amhara region<br> of Ethiopia.<br> Methods: A repeated cross-sectional study was conducted using four consecutive<br> nationally representative Ethiopian demographic and health surveys (2000–2016).<br> A logit-based multivariate decomposition analysis for a non-linear response<br> model was fitted to identify factors that contributed to the change in<br> child marriage over time. Statistical significance was declared at a p-value<br> of < 0.05. The child marriage practice in the Amhara region by the<br> year 2030 was also predicted using dierent forecasting features of Excel.<br> Results: The trend of child marriage over the study period (2000–2016) decreased<br> from 79.9% (76.7, 82.8) to 42.9% (39.1, 46.9), with an annual average reduction<br> rate of 2.9%. Approximately 35.2% of the decline resulted from an increase in the<br> proportion of women who attained secondary and above-secondary education<br> over the two surveys. A decrease in the proportion of rural women and a<br> change in the behavior of educated and media-exposed women also contributed<br> significantly to the decline in child marriage. The prevalence of child marriage in<br> the Amhara region by the year 2030 was also predicted to be 10.1% or 8.8%.<br> Conclusion: Though there has been a significant decline in child marriage in the<br> Amhara region over the past 16 years, the proportion is still high, and the region is<br> not going to eliminate it by 2030. Education, residence, and media exposure were<br> all factors associated with the observed change in child marriage in this study.<br> Therefore, additional eorts will be required if child marriage is to be eliminated<br> by 2030, and investing more in education and media access will hasten the region’s<br> progress in this direction.<br>