Child Marriage and Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program: Analysis of protective pathways in the Amhara region

Maja Gavrilovic, Tia Palermo, Elsa Valli (), Francesca Viola, Vincenzo Vinci, Karin Heissler, Mathilde Renault, Gabriela Guerrero Serdan, Essa Mussa and Office of Research - Innocenti Unicef

Innocenti Research Report

Abstract: Emerging evidence suggests that social protection programmes can have a positive role in delaying marriage for girls. But the pathways and design features by which programmes may influence child marriage outcomes remain unknown. This mixed-methods study explores whether and how the Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) in Ethiopia, given its national reach and potential to address poverty, can also affect child marriage practice. It draws on descriptive quantitative and qualitative data from an ongoing impact evaluation of the Integrated Safety Net Program (ISNP) pilot in the Amhara region. It finds that PSNP, through an economic channel, is effective in reducing financial pressures on families to marry off girls and in improving girls’ education opportunities. Income-strengthening measures must, however, be accompanied by complementary efforts – including girls’ empowerment, awareness-raising and legal measures – to transform deep-rooted social and gender norms and attitudes that perpetuate the harmful practice of child marriage.

Keywords: child marriage; child protection; gender issues; social norms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 83
Date: 2020
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucf:inorer:inorer1177

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