Polygyny and Child Growth: Evidence From Twenty-Six African Countries

Wagner, Natascha; Rieger, Matthias

doi:10.1080/13545701.2014.927953

Cited by 25 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Consistent with prior studies (4)(5)(6)(7)(8), polygyny is predictive of relatively low food security and poor child health in aggregated data. However, such associations are driven entirely by the tendency of polygyny to be more common in marginalized and ecologically vulnerable villages and ethnic groups.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

“…Findings are mixed, study sites are rarely regionally or nationally representative, and small sample sizes raise issues of statistical power. Given these problems, the consistency of findings presented in recent large-scale, representatively sampled demographic studies of polygyny and child health is seductive (4)(5)(6)(7)(8). However, as we will argue, studies relying on highly aggregated data bring their own, often overlooked, methodological problems (27), problems that are acute when contrasting polygynous and monogamous households, in part because the former tend to be most common in remote and/or marginalized groups facing numerous socioecological barriers to health (SI Text).…”

Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

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No evidence that polygynous marriage is a harmful cultural practice in northern Tanzania

Lawson

James²,

Ngadaya

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Polygyny is cross-culturally common and a topic of considerable academic and policy interest, often deemed a harmful cultural practice serving the interests of men contrary to those of women and children. Supporting this view, large-scale studies of national African demographic surveys consistently demonstrate that poor child health outcomes are concentrated in polygynous households. Negative population-level associations between polygyny and well-being have also been reported, consistent with the hypothesis that modern transitions to socially imposed monogamy are driven by cultural group selection. We challenge the consensus view that polygyny is harmful, drawing on multilevel data from 56 ethnically diverse Tanzanian villages. We first demonstrate the vulnerability of aggregated data to confounding between ecological and individual determinants of health; while across villages polygyny is associated with poor child health and low food security, such relationships are absent or reversed within villages, particularly when children and fathers are coresident. We then provide data indicating that the costs of sharing a husband are offset by greater wealth (land and livestock) of polygynous households. These results are consistent with models of polygyny based on female choice. Finally, we show that village-level negative associations between polygyny prevalence, food security, and child health are fully accounted for by underlying differences in ecological vulnerability (rainfall) and socioeconomic marginalization (access to education). We highlight the need for improved, culturally sensitive measurement tools and appropriate scales of analysis in studies of polygyny and other purportedly harmful practices and discuss the relevance of our results to theoretical accounts of marriage and contemporary population policy.evolutionary anthropology | public health | family structure | child health | food security R ecent years have witnessed growing recognition of the importance of gender in all aspects of international development (1). This shift includes domestic and international efforts to abolish so-called "harmful cultural practices," a term used to describe practices of, typically nonwestern, cultures deemed detrimental to well-being, most often with regard to women and children (SI Text). Most attention has focused on female genital cutting and on child and forced marriage (2, 3). In many policyorientated texts, this label is also given to polygynous marriage (hereafter polygyny). For example, the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women states that polygyny "contravene[s] a woman's right to equality with men and can have such serious emotional and financial consequences for her and her dependents that such marriages ought to be discouraged and prohibited" (2). Such statements are frequently presented as stylized facts and made without discussion of supporting evidence. However, a recent spate of articles, mostly based on large-scale African Demographic and Health ...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

No evidence that polygynous marriage is a harmful cultural practice in northern Tanzania

Lawson

James²,

Ngadaya

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…These inconsistencies may be due to some unmarried women ('girlfriends') reporting that they were junior wives and/or because some first wives erroneously reported being monogamously married. Wagner and Rieger (2014) report that nutritional status is superior for children of first wives compared to those of second or later wives. It is unclear from their analysis if this effect remains significant after monogamous women are excluded from the model.…”

Section: Wagner and Rieger 2014mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Adedini and Odimegwu (2017) also report evidence that child survival is lowest among poorly educated polygynous women (although interactions between polygyny and alternative markers of socioeconomic advantage are mixed). Wagner and Rieger (2014) report significant heterogeneity in the relationship between polygyny and child nutritional status at the national level. Indeed, despite very large sample sizes, confidence intervals for the estimated effect of polygyny on child height-for-age cross zero for 15 of the 26 countries included in their analysis (Wagner and Rieger 2014: 121).…”

Section: Review Of the Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Polygynous marriage and child health in sub-Saharan Africa: What is the evidence for harm?

Lawson¹,

Gibson²

2018

DemRes

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“…Indeed, consistent with our analysis (2), Wagner and Rieger's cross-national study identifies considerable heterogeneity, with confidence intervals crossing zero for 15 of 26 countries and a positive (statistically nonsignificant) association between polygyny and HAZ in Tanzania (ref. 4, p 17). Africa is a diverse continent and polygyny a diverse institution, encompassing variable norms of residence, resource sharing, and spousal recruitment (5).…”

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confidence: 99%

Reply to Rieger and Wagner: Context matters when studying purportedly harmful cultural practices

Lawson¹,

James²,

Ngadaya³

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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(1) present three lines of critique. First, Rieger and Wagner (1) argue that our (2) demonstration that polygyny predicts higher child weight-for-height z-scores (WHZ) in two out of three ethnic groups practicing polygyny should be disregarded because of inadequacies of this measure. We defend our use of WHZ because: (i) although no measure is perfect, many studies unequivocally confirm that WHZ is a useful indicator of acute malnutrition, highly predictive of child mortality (3); and (ii) regardless of construct validity, WHZ scores have guided the international development sector for decades, our primary audience in addressing claims that polygyny is universally harmful. We also emphasize that our interpretation that polygyny may, in certain contexts, serve female interests rests not only on differences in WHZ, but also on our demonstration that (male-headed) polygynous households are relatively food secure and wealthy compared with monogamous households.Second, Rieger and Wagner (1) write that we demonstrate that child height-for-age z-scores (HAZ) are "systematically and negatively correlated with polygyny both at the individual and the village levels" (1), and that although our individual-level comparisons are statistically nonsignificant, this can be attributed to small sample size because their study of polygyny across 26 African nations revealed a statistically significant negative correlation at a similar magnitude (4). This critique fundamentally misses our central conclusion: context matters when studying purportedly harmful cultural practices. At the village level, the association between polygyny prevalence and child HAZ is accounted for by underlying contextual differences in ecological vulnerability (rainfall) and socioeconomic marginalization (education). At the individual level, our estimates are based on a specific area of Tanzania, and so cannot be meaningfully contrasted with Wagner and Rieger's (4) estimate based on Africa as a whole. Indeed, consistent with our analysis (2), Wagner and Rieger's cross-national study identifies considerable heterogeneity, with confidence intervals crossing zero for 15 of 26 countries and a positive (statistically nonsignificant) association between polygyny and HAZ in Tanzania (ref. 4, p 17). Africa is a diverse continent and polygyny a diverse institution, encompassing variable norms of residence, resource sharing, and spousal recruitment (5). A true understanding of polygyny can only be gained by acknowledging this diversity and designing analyses that take context into account (2).Third, Rieger and Wagner (1) suggest our analyses (2) are flawed because we don't include interactions with child age. Reanalyzing our data selecting only children over 30 mo, Rieger and Wagner (1) report a negative association between polygyny and HAZ. However, our data are not suitable to test for age dependencies, which can only be confidently assessed via longitudinal analysis. Furthermore to achieve adequate sample size, Rieger and Wagner resort to (i) pooling data across et...

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Polygyny and Child Growth: Evidence From Twenty-Six African Countries

Cited by 25 publications

References 28 publications

No evidence that polygynous marriage is a harmful cultural practice in northern Tanzania

No evidence that polygynous marriage is a harmful cultural practice in northern Tanzania

Polygynous marriage and child health in sub-Saharan Africa: What is the evidence for harm?

Reply to Rieger and Wagner: Context matters when studying purportedly harmful cultural practices

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