Replication Data for: A big push community intervention reduced rates of child marriage by 80%.

Globally, as many as 12 million girls marry before the age of 18 every year; in northern Nigeria, 80% of girls marry before 18. While such marriages may be deemed the best available option by many girls and parents, numerous studies suggest that when delayed marriage is made possible it benefits educational attainment, improves health by reducing maternal mortality and morbidity, and leads to many other benefits to of girls’ lives. Despite this, little is known about what reduces child marriage, and successful interventions tend to have an impact of just a few percentage points. We use a paired cluster-randomized trial in 18 communities to rigorously evaluate a locally tailored big-push intervention called Pathways to Choice in northern Nigeria. We show that Pathways decreases rates of marriage among adolescent girls from 79% in the control group to only 14% in the treatment group, just over an 80% decrease. While a key part of Pathways’ effect is a significant increase in girls re-enrolling in school, education alone cannot explain its effects on child marriage. We argue that Pathways’ whole community focus reduces the likelihood of social backlash and contributes meaningfully to its success. Our results demonstrate that a big push can significantly alter entrenched, normative behavior around child marriage, and that bundled interventions may be more than the sum of their parts.

全球范围内，每年约有1200万名女童在18岁前缔结早婚；在尼日利亚北部，这一比例更是高达80%。尽管不少女童与家长认为早婚是当前可及的最优选择，但大量研究证实，推迟成婚能够提升女童的受教育水平，通过降低孕产妇死亡率与患病率改善健康状况，并为女童的生活带来诸多其他益处。尽管如此，学界对有效抑制童婚的关键因素仍知之甚少，且已有的成功干预措施通常仅能带来数个百分点的效果提升。本研究在尼日利亚北部的18个社区开展配对整群随机试验（paired cluster-randomized trial），对一项贴合当地实际的大推进（big-push）式干预项目——“选择之路（Pathways to Choice）”进行严谨的效果评估。研究结果显示，该项目使青春期女童的早婚率从对照组的79%降至干预组的14%，降幅超过80%。尽管该项目的核心作用之一是显著提升了女童的复学率，但仅靠教育因素无法完全解释其对早婚的抑制效果。本研究认为，“选择之路（Pathways to Choice）”项目以全社区为覆盖对象的设计，降低了遭遇社会抵制的可能性，对项目的成功起到了关键支撑作用。本研究结果证明，大推进（big-push）式干预能够显著改变童婚这一根深蒂固的社会规范行为，且整合式干预措施的效果往往大于各组成部分的简单相加。