When Do Laws Matter? National Minimum-Age-of-Marriage Laws, Child Rights, and Adolescent Fertility, 1989–2007

Abstract

Using the case of adolescent fertility, we ask the questions of whether and when national laws have an effect on outcomes above and beyond the effects of international law and global organizing. To answer these questions, we utilize a fixed-effect time-series regression model to analyze the impact of minimum-age-of-marriage laws in 115 poor- and middle-income countries from 1989 to 2007. We find that countries with strict laws setting the minimum age of marriage at 18 experienced the most dramatic decline in rates of adolescent fertility. Trends in countries that set this age at 18 but allowed exceptions (for example, marriage with parental consent) were indistinguishable from countries that had no such minimum-age-of-marriage law. Thus, policies that adhere strictly to global norms are more likely to elicit desired outcomes. The article concludes with a discussion of what national law means in a diffuse global system where multiple actors and institutions make the independent effect of law difficult to identify.

The Global Adoption of National Policies Protecting Children from Violent Discipline in Schools and Homes, 1950–2011

“…World polity theorists stress that states are part of a global society that shapes the construction of interests and provides clues regarding what “good” states should do (Finnemore & Sikkink ; Meyer et al ). In fact, scholars have specifically noted the importance of global civil society for promoting child rights (Boyle & Kim ; Gran & Aliberti ; Kim & Boyle ; Kim et al ).…”

Abortion Liberalization in World Society, 1960–2009

“…These studies consistently show that country-level membership in international nongovernmental organizations, that is, an INGO effect, predicts policy adoption and other similar outcomes (Schofer et al 2012). The scope of such diffusions is remarkable, encompassing laws concerning human rights (Cole 2005), sex (Frank et al 2010), marriage (Kim et al 2013), female genital cutting (Boyle 2002), chemical weapons (Price 1995), the environment (Frank, Hironaka, and Schofer 2000), the death penalty (Mathias 2013), and many other issues.…”

From the Constitution to the Classroom: Educational Freedom in Antwerp’s Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Schools

“…An in-depth inquiry into the plural field in which the education laws operate, and into the conditions under which these laws are both formed and appropriated, may contribute to the understanding of their unintended impacts (see Levinson et al, 2009;Rubin, 2012). It may also identify the political powers that generate these impacts (Barzilai, 2008) and the precise mechanisms through which they occur (see Kim, Boyle, Longhofer, & Downloaded by [Northeastern University] at 01:53 19 November 2014Brehm, 2013. Such findings may assist policy makers in designing a more effective interface between the different cogwheels of education policy and in shaping stronger linkages between education laws and practices.…”