Keywords: Tropical Africa, age of marriage, birth rate, demography

The demographic model created by the American researcher J. Bongaarts covers the main determinants of fertility and, among other factors, includes such an indicator as the age of marriage ¹. Its most precise definition is given in the work on adapting the model to the realities of sub-Saharan Africa - "the proportion of women of reproductive age who are married or have a permanent partner"².The higher this indicator is, the higher the birth rate - especially in societies where there is little practice of deliberately limiting it.

A number of demographic studies in the 1980s and 1990s convincingly proved that the potential impact of these factors on the birth rate may vary depending on the stage of demographic transition. Thus, at the beginning of the second phase of transition*, when the birth rate is still very high (more than 5 children per woman), and the prevalence of contraception (especially modern effective methods) is low, changes in the proportion of women of reproductive age who are married or have a partner can have a noticeable impact on the dynamics of fertility in society. Thus, a decrease in this proportion, especially among the youngest representatives of reproductive age, can lead to a significant decrease in the birth rate.³

With the demographic transition and the spread of modern family planning practices, their impact on the dynamics of fertility increases, while the role of such indicators as the average age of marriage gradually weakens4.

Currently, Tropical Africa is the most backward region in terms of demographic transition. This suggests that factors related to the age of marriage continue to significantly affect the birth rate here. If this version finds empirical confirmation, it can serve as a basis for practical measures, the adoption of which will help accelerate the decline in the birth rate and, consequently, the rate of population growth.

Measures aimed at raising the average age of marriage are particularly promising and are particularly important in the relatively early stages of the second phase of the demographic transition, when the birth rate in a particular country is just beginning to decline, and the level of formal "marriage" is still very high; at the same time, a significant part of women of childbearing age is in formal sociocultural norms noticeably suppress extra-marital (or premarital) birth rates. I must say that these conditions are met in most of the states of modern Tropical Africa.

It can also be assumed that the average age of marriage is important insofar as women who marry earlier give birth to their first child earlier, and in general have more children, which leads to a higher birth rate in society.

Paired and multiple regression methods were used to test the hypothesis. Based on data from medico-demographic studies5, we formed three samples: the first one included indicators for all the countries under consideration (57 Latin American and Latin American countries).

This paper was prepared in accordance with the 2013 HSE Basic Research Program.

* Transition from the traditional type of reproduction, which is characterized by high mortality and high birth rate, to its modern type, which is characterized by low mortality and low birth rate, respectively.

Caribbean, 33 in South and Southeast Asia, 19 in the former Soviet Union, 19 in the Middle East and North Africa, 13 in South Africa, and 93 in Tropical Africa). The second sample covered all of the above - mentioned regions except Tropical Africa, while the third sample covered only Tropical Africa.

First of all, we checked the correlation between the average age of marriage and the total birth rate according to the sample that includes all regions. Within the pair correlation, the average age of marriage turned out to be an average strong negative predictor of regression (TFR-sum of regression squares)⁶ of the birth rate. However, it should be taken into account that countries with a higher average age of marriage tend to be generally more modern; accordingly, it is logical to expect that in such countries the use of modern family planning practices will be more widespread.

In other words, TFR is influenced not by the average age of marriage, but by a certain third factor (for example, the spread of modern contraception) associated with modernization, and it is this factor that contributes to a decrease in the birth rate, while raising the age of marriage can be considered as an independent aspect of social modernization.

We used the multiple regression method to assess the contribution of each of the two factors (prevalence of contraception and average age of marriage) to the detection of TFR. It turned out that if we take into account the impact on fertility of the spread of contraception, the impact on it of the average age of marriage is much weaker ⁷.

If you exclude all countries in Tropical Africa from the sample, the impact of the average age of marriage on fertility becomes even smaller for other regions. This is quite understandable, since the countries of Tropical Africa are among the "laggards", and when we excluded them from the survey, the most modernized regions remained in the sample, where family planning has a greater impact on the dynamics of fertility.

Thus, for countries that are far advanced in the second phase of the demographic transition, the average age of marriage really has almost no impact on the birth rate, which is largely determined by the scale of use of modern contraception.

Let us now test the second part of the hypothesis, namely, is it true that for countries in Tropical Africa that are lagging behind in the demographic transition and are mostly in the first half (or even the first third) of the second phase of the transition, the average age of marriage remains a factor determining most of the variations in the birth rate, comparable to the spread of modern contraception?

For testing, we again used the multiple regression method, this time including only the States of Tropical Africa in the sample. The results of the analysis fully confirmed the hypothesis that the prevalence of modern contraception and the age of marriage, when they affect the birth rate in the region, correlate completely differently than in other developing countries. The effect of the age of marriage factor on fertility (the higher the age, the lower the birth rate, and vice versa) in Tropical Africa is stronger than the spread of contraception.⁸

This conclusion is also supported by country studies, which show, inter alia, that in a number of African countries, an increase in the average age of marriage had a greater impact on the decline in fertility ⁹ than, for example, in Asia and Latin America, where the spread of contraception played a key role ¹⁰.

AVERAGE AGE OF MARRIAGE AND BIRTH RATE DYNAMICS

So, the results of our study showed that in Tropical Africa, the average age of marriage retains a significant impact on the dynamics of fertility-increasing this age can be used to reduce the birth rate in Tropical Africa. It should be noted that, since the mid-1990s, the decline in the birth rate in the region slowed down, and it almost "froze" at very high levels, often-more than 5 children per woman.¹¹ As a result, the problem of explosive population growth and associated risks has emerged. To solve this problem as quickly as possible, African countries need to simultaneously engage in various ways to reduce the birth rate.¹²

In most countries in the region, the average age of first marriage for women is barely 18 years ¹³ or even lower: 18.3 years (2008) in Nigeria, 18.2 years (2007) in Zambia, 17.9 years (2011) in Uganda, 17 years (2008) in Sierra Leone and 15.5 years (2007) - in Niger ¹⁴.

Calculations made in the late 1970s by the Americans J. R. R. Tolkien and J. R. R. Tolkien.Trussell, J. Mencken, and E. Cole ¹⁵ show that for societies with a "natural birth rate" (which, due to a low birth rate, can be attributed to a low birth rate),

Table

Average age of marriage in some Tropical African countries at the time of ratification of the Maputo Protocol

Source: http://www.statcompiler.com

increasing the average age of marriage by 1 year will reduce the TFR by 5-6%.

Our analysis leads us to a similar conclusion: raising the average age of marriage by 1 year will reduce the birth rate by about 0.2 children per woman; for countries with a birth rate of 5 children per woman, this means a decrease of 4%, i.e. less than indicated in American studies. This is due to the fact that most of the countries of Tropical Africa have experienced a certain demographic modernization since the 1970s, so it is no longer appropriate to call them societies with a "natural birth rate" in the full sense of the term.

However, the results of our study suggest that in modern Tropical Africa, increasing the average age of marriage retains significant potential that can be tapped to accelerate the decline in fertility. It is quite realistic for many countries in the region to raise the average age of marriage by, say, 5 years (from 18 to 23 years), which will reach the level of 1 child per woman. In other words, for a country with a current birth rate of about 5 children per woman (with a target of 2 children per woman needed to ensure simple reproduction), such a measure would allow one-third of the necessary path to reduce the birth rate.

This makes it possible to draw an important practical conclusion: raising the average age of marriage, along with the spread of women's education and modern contraception, can be one of the main ways to accelerate the decline in the birth rate in Tropical Africa. At the same time, unlike the other two mentioned areas, raising the age will practically not require additional financial resources.

LEGAL AGE OF MARRIAGE

The most obvious way to raise the average age of marriage is to move the legal minimum age limit for this act. For example, the special document added to the African Charter on Human and Peoples ' Rights on the rights of women (Maputo Protocol), while-

Adopted by the African Union in 2003, it suggests that "appropriate national legislative measures should be adopted to ensure that the country is able to:.. minimum age of marriage for women... - 18 years"¹⁶. Of course, its signing by 46 member countries of the African Union and ratification by almost three dozen States marks an important step in the right direction.

However, this is clearly not enough. First, among the countries in Tropical Africa, the Protocol was mostly ratified by those with an average age of marriage of 18 or above at the time of its adoption (although there were exceptions - Mali and Burkina Faso) (see table). Many countries, for which the problem of early marriage remains extremely relevant, have not ratified the protocol (the most striking example is Niger, where, as already mentioned, the average age of first marriage was 15.5 years).

Secondly, in a number of States that have ratified the Maputo Protocol, its conditions are not met. For example, in Burkina Faso, where the average age of marriage for women aged 20-24 was 17.9 years in 2010, and in Malawi in the same year it was 18 years. Given that this is the average figure for this age group, it is safe to say that a significant proportion of women (especially in rural areas) of this age were married before the age of 18.

In most countries of Tropical Africa (as in many other regions), the law sets two age thresholds - for marriage with and without parental consent. As a rule, the difference is 2 years, but in some countries, for example, in Zambia, it is significantly larger - 5 years (16 years and 21 years)¹⁷. A special feature of Tropical Africa is that it is still dominated by marriages with parental consent. Accordingly, it can be assumed that this age threshold will be more correlated with the average age of marriage than the official age of marriage is ¹⁸.

Raising the age of marriage with parental consent (up to 18 years) it can help accelerate the decline in the birth rate in the region. Indeed, a multiple regression study found that in Tropical Africa, the legal minimum age for marriage with parental consent has an even stronger negative impact on fertility than the proportion of women using modern contraception.¹⁹

In other words, at the current stage of the demographic history of Africa (recall that most countries are in the first third or first half of the second phase of the demographic transition), raising this age limit may even contribute more to accelerating the decline in the birth rate than the spread of contraception.

Of course, this does not mean that the spread of modern contraception as a way to reduce the birth rate can be ignored - on the contrary, the curtailment of relevant programs in the 1990s significantly contributed to its" freezing " at a very high level, and the resumption of family planning programs modeled on Rwanda and Ethiopia should be one of the main ways to reduce the birth rate. Rather, the result of legalizing the age of marriage should be interpreted as follows: in some countries in Tropical Africa, raising the minimum age for marriage with parental consent immediately after the introduction of this measure may have a greater impact on reducing the birth rate than the spread of contraception in the same short period of time.²⁰

It is worth noting the initiative of Malawi, where in the fall of 2012, the country's President Joyce Banda announced the need to raise the legal age of marriage from 15 to 21 years. The directive was issued as part of a campaign to combat maternal mortality, which is extremely high among adolescent mothers.²¹ If implemented, this initiative will also contribute to reducing the birth rate, which in Malawi exceeds 5 children per woman.

HOW CAN THE LEGAL AGE OF MARRIAGE BE RAISED?

Raising the legal age for marriage with parental consent can have a positive impact on social and demographic development. In particular, the number of early pregnancies and the level of maternal and infant mortality will decrease. First of all, this is important for the most demographically backward countries of the Sahel region. However, legislative initiatives themselves, while necessary, remain insufficient to achieve the desired effect, as there is a problem of their enforcement.

For example, laws regarding the age limit for marriage are ignored in rural areas in many Tropical African countries, as evidenced by the average age of marriage for urban and rural areas. In Nigeria, for example, they differed by more than 4 years - 21.1 for urban women and 16.9 for rural women.

The situation is aggravated by the coexistence of parallel legal systems: often, along with the official civil character, traditional law (custom law) is also applied, which is a set of customs that have developed over the centuries, and in a number of countries (for example, in Nigeria), the Muslim part of the population lives according to the laws of Islamic law - Sharia. The regulation of marriage relations within different systems can vary significantly, and the establishment of a single minimum age for marriage for the whole country is noticeably more complicated.

A good example is the legal conflict in Nigeria, where all the legal systems described above co-exist.

In 2003, Nigeria adopted the Children's Rights Act as part of its obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. According to the Law, the Constitution was amended to establish a universal minimum age for marriage-18 years. However, only about half of the Nigerian states have passed the Law. In the rest (mainly in the north of the country), early marriages are still common. In 2010, a story about the marriage of one of the senators to a 13-year-old girl became widely known. Local and foreign human rights activists claimed that the senator had violated the law and demanded his arrest; the senator, in turn, claimed that he had acted in accordance with Islamic law.²²

The importance of international and national initiatives aimed at raising the average age of marriage and delegalizing early marriages is clear. However, in the context of the coexistence of different legal systems, legislative initiatives alone are not enough. Their implementation should be supported by an awareness of the socio-economic attractiveness of later marriages.

Increasing the average age of marriage can be promoted by promoting and improving the level of education for women, as well as by implementing projects in this area that will keep girls in school until graduation. In Malawi, for example, under the World Bank program, high school students and their families were paid small scholarships - provided that the girl attended at least 80% of school classes. The pilot program has reduced girls ' school drop-outs by 40% and at the same time re-attract those who have recently dropped out of school.²³ At the same time, the program predetermined a decrease in the age of marriage and childbearing among schoolgirls who postponed marriage for the sake of study.²⁴

An interesting example is the Berhani Hewan program in rural Ethiopia: students were provided with office supplies, and their parents agreed that if their daughter attended at least 80% of classes and did not marry before graduation, her family would receive a goat as a gift. ²⁵

* * *

So, the age of marriage is still a very important factor affecting the birth rate in Tropical Africa. Given that the average age of first marriage here remains significantly lower than in many other developing countries, it can be argued that the region has the potential to reduce the birth rate by raising the average age of marriage. Such an increase can be achieved, in particular, through international and national legislative initiatives aimed at establishing a minimum age of marriage not lower than 18 years (at the same time, it is necessary that the minimum age of marriage with parental consent is not lower than 18 years, otherwise we can expect a mass early (16-17 years) extradition of girls married).

However, legislative initiatives alone are not sufficient, as they still need to be implemented and supported at the local level by programs that will reduce the social and economic attractiveness of early marriage in the eyes of the population and encourage school-age girls (and, of course, their parents) to postpone marriage until later.

^{Bongaarts J.} 1 A Framework for Analyzing the Proximate Determinants of Fertility // Population and Development Review. 1978, Vol. 4, N l, p. 105 - 132.

^{Bongaarts J., Frank O., Lesthaeghe R.} 2 The Proximate Determinants of Fertility in Sub-Saharan Africa // Population and Development Review. 1984. Vol. 10, N 3, p. 511 - 537.

^{TrussellJ., Menken J., Coale A.J.} 3 A general model for analyzing the effect and nuptiality on fertility // Nuptiality and Fertility. Liege, 1979, p. 7 - 27; Adlakha A., Ayad M., Kumar S. The role of nuptiality in fertility decline: A comparative analysis // Proceedings of the Demographic and Health Surveys World Conference. Vol. 2. Washington (D.C.), 1991, p. 947 - 964; Jolly C.L., Gribble J.N. The proximate determinants of fertility // Demographic change in sub-Saharan Africa. Washington D.C., 1993, p. 68 - 116; Westoff Ch.F., Blanc A.K., Nyblade L. Marriage and Entry into Parenthood. Calverton (MD), 1994.

^{Chesnais J.C.} 4 The Demographic Transition: Stages, Patterns, and Economic Implications. Oxford, 1992.

⁵ A series of Demographic and Health Surveys was launched by the International Aid Organization USAID in 1984. More than 260 studies have already been conducted in more than 90 developing countries around the world. These are nationally and regionally representative surveys with a sample of 5 thousand to 30 thousand households, conducted at intervals of about 5 years.

⁶ Regression indicators: r= - 0,499, p << 0,0001.

⁷ For the use of modern contraception among married women aged 15-49 years: r = -0.708, p < < 0.0001; for the average age

first marriage among women aged 25-49: r = -0.170, p < 0.0001.

⁸ For married women aged 15-49: r= -0.237, p = 0.032; for the average age of first marriage among women aged 25-49: r = -0.345, p = 0.002.

^{Adlakha A., Ayad M., Kumar S.} 9 Op. cit., Jolly C.L., Gribble J.N. Op. cit.

^{Adlakha A., Ayad M., Kumar S.} 10 Op. cit.; Westoff Ch. F., Blanc A.K., Nyblade L. Op. cit.

¹¹ For an overview of data sources and works on this topic, see: Zinkina Yu. V. Birth rate in Tropical Africa: the risk of demographic explosion / / Asia and Africa Today. 2013, N 9.

^{Korotaev A.V., Zinkina Yu. V.} 12 How to optimize the birth rate / / Asia and Africa today. 2013, N 4.

¹³ a fundamental study of the concept of "young bullion for marriage", conducted by R. Dixon-Muller, showed that boys and girls under the age of 14 are not universally ready for marriage, 15-17-year-olds are often not ready for marriage, and only 18-year-olds (and older) are ready for family life life. The Dixon-Mueller study included various parameters, including the ability to make decisions independently, assess the consequences of these decisions, and so on. For more information, see: Dixon-Mueller R. How Young is "Too Young"? Comparative Perspectives on Adolescent Sexual, Marital, and Reproductive Transitions // Studies in Family Planning. 2008. Vol. 39, N 4, p. 247 - 262.

¹⁴ Data from health and demographic studies are provided here and further in the database: MEASURE DHS STAT Compiler. ICF International, 2012 - http://www.statconvpiler.com/

^{Trussell J. Menken J., Coale A.J.} 15 Op. cit.

¹⁶ Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, Article 6b, p. 8.

¹⁷ United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (2010). Consideration of Reports Submitted by States Parties Under Article 18 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women: Zambia, Combined Fifth and Sixth Periodic Reports of States Parties. 2010.

¹⁸ Pairwise regression indicators for minimum age of marriage and average age of first marriage: r = 0.469, p = 0.001. Pairwise regression indicators for the minimum age of marriage with parental consent and the average age of first marriage: r = 0.663, p << 0.0001. Data sources: OECD Development Center. Social Institutions and Gender Index. Country profiles. OECD, 2013 - http://gendertndex.org/countries

¹⁹ Regression indicators: minimum age of marriage with parental consent: r = -0.425, p = 0.002; proportion of married women aged 15-49 using modern contraceptives r = -0.254, p = 0.059.

²⁰ This is a short-term effect; in the long run, the introduction of modern contraception seems to be a much more important measure.

^{Laing A.} 21 Malawi to increase legal age of marriage to 21 // The Telegraph, 07.11.2012 - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ africaandindianocean/malawi/9662476/Malawi-to-increase-legal-age-of-marriage-to-21.html

²² Nigerian senator Sani denies marrying girl of 13 // BBC, 30.04.2010 - http://news.bbe.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8651043.stm; Nigerian senator marries girl of 13 // Aljazeera, 18.05.2010 - http://www.aljazeera. com/news/africa/2010/05/201()518858453672.html

^{Baird S., Mcintosh C., Ozler B.} 24 Designing Cost-Effective Cash Transfer Programs to Boost Schooling among Young Women in Sub-Saharan Africa // Policy Research Working Paper 5090. Washington (D.C.), 2009.

²⁴ Ibidem.

^{Erulkar A.S., Muthengi E.} 25 Evaluation of Berhane Hewan: A Program to Delay Child Marriage in Rural Ethiopia // International Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health. 2009. Vol. 35, No 1, p. 6 - 14.

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