The effect of extreme weather events on the frequency of child marriage: A systematic review of the evidence

Abstract

Child marriage is considered a human rights violation, and its elimination is an explicit target of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. However, there is growing concern that climate change may be threatening efforts to eliminate child marriage. We conducted a systematic review to synthesise quantitative research on the relationship between climate change and child marriage and assess the risk of bias across these studies. We identified 18 studies from an interdisciplinary range of databases. Several studies found that child marriage was correlated with droughts and floods. However, because of the high risk of bias across studies, differences in the vulnerability of the populations studied, and differences in the definitions of extreme weather used, we are unable to draw broad conclusions about whether extreme weather events increase or decrease the rate of child marriage. We discuss common biases across studies and provide suggestions for improving the strength of evidence on this topic.