How does early marriage affect the education of women in Brazil?

Abstract

The theme of early marriage, in addition to being associated with developing countries, serves as an example of human rights violations. Although the discussion about the impacts that early marriage can generate in aspects such as education and health is extensive in other countries and the Brazilian legislation itself has some contradictions in the definition of child marriage, few are the works that elucidate the current situation of the child and adolescent female population in Brazil. This study is based on the comparison of data from 2002 to 2015 of the PNAD for girls and women from 12 to 49 years of age, in addition to using PNDS of 2006 as a basis for the probability of having a stable union (marriage or informal) before eighteen years. The propensity Score Matching (PSM) method is used to analyze the influence that child marriage potentially has on woman’s educational background. These effects were negative in relation to completion of basic and higher education, by approximately 21% and 13%, respectively. The same PSM exercise was made for white and non-white women showing that early marriage’s impact on education reaches approximately 27% among white women and 15% among non-white women for Basic Education and a 15% impact for white and 12% for nonwhite women on higher education.