Comparison of Early Marriage Age in Bangladesh, Ghana, Iraq and Indonesia

Abstract

Early marriage is marriage before the age of 18 for either boys or girls. Early marriage can be influenced by customs, beliefs and religion. Customs in some areas lead to girls marrying much older men and have occurred in parts of Indonesia, especially in rural and inland areas. This study aims to examine the socio-cultural factors that drive the incidence of early marriage. The main methods in this research are qualitative ethnography and Narrative review. From the literature review research analyzed, there are several factors that influence early marriage, namely knowledge, education, socio-culture, income, economy, social norms, parents, gender, ethnicity, age, menarche, attitudes, media exposure, premarital pregnancy, family members, religion, adulthood phenomena, employment, peer influence, poverty, parental role, stigma, region and place of residence. This can be used as a reference for midwives in providing services by searching the literature through PubMed, NCBI, and Semantic Scholar. Of the several factors that influence early marriage, studies conducted in Bangladesh, Ghana, Iraq, Indonesia and other countries show that early marriage is still a major problem for the welfare of women from these four countries. Measures that can help address the problem of early marriage include improving access and quality of education, changing social norms that support early marriage, and empowering women to make decisions.