|
|
|
| ||||||||||
|
TRANSITIONS TO ADULTHOOD Married Adolescent Women
While girls are marrying later today, Egypt still has one of the lowest average marriage ages for girls among Arab countries. Understanding adolescent marriage will help to better target interventions to reduce the prevalence of early marriage and ameliorate the life conditions of those who do marry during adolescence. KEY FINDINGS: Prevalence of adolescent marriage: The survey found an overall marriage prevalence among adolescent females (10?19) of nearly 12 percent. Regional variation is significant, ranging from only 5 percent in urban governorates (Cairo and Alexandria) to 12 percent in rural Lower Egypt and 20 percent in rural Upper Egypt. By age 20, more than 42 percent of Egyptian girls are already married.
Educational attainment: Married adolescents are disadvantaged in their educational attainment vis a vis unmarried adolescents. More than one?third of the married sample never attended school and the vast majority of those who did attend went only as far as preparatory school (not necessarily completing it). Contrary to common belief, however, these young women are not dropping out of school in. order to get married. Rather, the data show that they drop out for other reasons and marry at a later point in time. Reproductive health knowledge: Knowledge of contraceptive methods among married adolescents is fairly high. However, marriage has not improved the likelihood that they will know when in the monthly cycle they can become pregnant, as their knowledge levels are similar to their unmarried peers. Contraceptive prevalence: Despite a relatively high level of knowledge, contraceptive prevalence among married adolescent women is negligible. Only those who have already had a first birth are using any form of contraception. This is evidence of the strong cultural norms encouraging newly married couples to establish their fertility soon after marriage. Pregnancy and birth outcomes: The median length of time between an adolescent girl's marriage and her first pregnancy is 4 months. Very high rates of stillbirth and infant death were found among married adolescents in this survey: 46 stillbirths and 74 infant deaths, each per 1000 live births. By comparison, the 1995 EDHS found that Egyptian women in their 20s experience 66 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, a figure that may not reflect the recent sharp declines in infant mortality because it refers to a less recent time period than the ASCE survey. | |||||||||||
