The early marriage situation in Bangladesh: evidence from the MICS-2019 survey

The social issue of early marriage exists everywhere, including Bangladesh. The background elements connected to early marriage cases in Bangladesh are examined in this study. Early marriage is still very common, even though its incidence has been declining over time. To identify the factors that contribute to early marriage, a background analysis of respondents based on the MICS-2019 data was performed. A binary logistic regression was carried out to explore the factors that influence child marriage in Bangladesh. The model suggests that several factors, namely women’s educational attainment, the family’s wealth index, the age of the women studied, the household head’s religion, and the household head’s sex, were crucial in promoting early marriage. In addition to these characteristics, this study looked into whether exposure to ICT and household head ethnicity had any impact on early marriage. It was revealed by classification and regression tree analysis that there is a strong connection between these factors and early marriage, and the interactions of different factors like religion of household head, ICT exposure, etc., are found to be the combined causal factors of early marriage. Early marriage is a barrier to social progress. The progress of society as a whole will be aided by programs that encourage and assist girls to continue their education. To reduce child marriage, strict adherence to the legal minimum age for first marriage may be essential.