Marital life courses in sub-Saharan Africa: all cause union dissolution, its timing, and time spent outside marriage

Benson John and Natalie Nitsche
Additional contact information
Benson John: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany
Natalie Nitsche: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany

No WP-2022-017, MPIDR Working Papers from Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany

Abstract: Not only whether but also when a union ends and how long individuals remain unpartnered subsequently is consequential for social and demographic outcomes. However, in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), information about the timing of union dissolution and the reproductive time ‘lost’ due to union dissolution is unknown. We close this gap by applying novel and standard indirect demographic techniques to Demographic Health Survey data collected in 34 SSA countries to document the level and timing of all-cause union dissolution and the time women spend outside of marriage due to union dissolution. Results revealed that in 28/34 countries, over one-fifth of first unions end within 15 years, and in 14/34 countries, the proportion of first unions ending within 25 years exceeds 40%. The average marital duration at first union dissolution varies between 4.8 and 9.4 years. The pace of remarriage is rapid across all countries, with the average duration between first union dissolution and first remarriage ranging between 0.2 and 2.9 years. The overall reproductive years lost to union dissolution varies between 1.3 and 5.3 years, and it accounts for 4.0% to 16.3% of the total reproductive life expectancy. We discuss the implications of these dynamics for fertility outcomes in SSA.

Keywords: Africa; cohort fertility; dissolution of marriage (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J1 Z0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2022
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.demogr.mpg.de/papers/working/wp-2022-017.pdf (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2022-017

DOI: 10.4054/MPIDR-WP-2022-017

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPIDR Working Papers from Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Wilhelm ().