Do Married by 18 and Women's age at first marriage (census-based) go together across countries?

Across 124 countries the link before adjusting for anything is r = -0.74, on a scale from -1 (opposite) to +1 (in step). A version that uses only each country's rank gives -0.80.

Does the link hold within countries over time, not just across countries?

There are not enough years of data within countries to check this over time.

Does Married by 18 cause Women's age at first marriage (census-based)?

This analysis cannot answer that. It shows only that the two go together. A link between two country measures, adjusted or not, does not show that either one changes the other. Country figures also say nothing about individual people.

Married by 18 vs. Women's age at first marriage (census-based)

Fades after adjusting for income

Across 124 countries, Married by 18 and Women's age at first marriage (census-based) rise and fall together at r = -0.74 (on a scale from −1 to +1, where 0 means no link). Comparing only countries with similar income (GDP per person) leaves r = -0.61, which could easily be chance (q = 0.10, allowing for the many pairs tested, and allowing for countries in the same region being alike).

Comparing countries across the middle half of women's age at first marriage (census-based), 21.5 to 24.6 years, married by 18 is better by 11.1% of women aged 20-24 at the top of that range than the bottom. Comparing only countries with similar national income, the gap is 8.66% of women aged 20-24.

Link before adjusting (r)-0.742p = 5.9e-23 · 124 countries

After adjusting for national income-0.606p = 1.1e-13 · likely range [-0.71, -0.48]

p, allowing for regions0.000standard error 0.076 · 6 regions

Check for luck (q)0.102across 14,952 pairs

How to read these.r runs from −1 (one goes up as the other goes down) to +1 (they rise together), and 0 means no link. Adjusting for national income means comparing countries with the same GDP per person, so differences in wealth can’t explain the link. Income is used in percentage terms, since an extra $1,000 means more to a poor country than to a rich one. p is how likely a link this strong would be if there were really none. Below 0.05 means it is unlikely to be chance. Very small values are written in short form: 1.1e-32 means a decimal point followed by 31 zeros and then 11, so very close to zero. The likely range is where the true figure probably lies, and a range that crosses zero means the link could easily be chance. Countries in the same region tend to resemble each other, so the third figure allows for that, which gives a fairer p. The standard error is the typical size of the error in r. Finally, testing this many pairs means some will look strong by luck alone. A q below 0.05 means this link is unlikely to be one of those.

Married by 18 · % of women aged 20-24link with income -0.60 · moderate

Women's age at first marriage (census-based) · yearslink with income +0.75 · high

“Link with income” is how closely each measure tracks GDP per person across countries, from −1 to +1.

Every country as a dot

best-fit line line after adjusting

Four ways to measure the link

Method	r	p	Countries
Standard (Pearson), not adjusted	-0.742	5.9e-23	124
By rank (Spearman), not adjusted	-0.801	5.7e-29	124
Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income	-0.606	1.1e-13	124
By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income	-0.696	3.9e-19	124

The rank version uses only each country’s place in line, from lowest to highest, so a few extreme countries count for less. The adjusted and unadjusted versions use the same 124 countries: those that report both measures and GDP per person. So the gap between them comes from the adjustment, not from a change in which countries are counted. Drop in the size of r after adjusting: +0.136 (a minus sign means it grew).

How solid is it?

Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from -0.660 (without SUR) to -0.578 (without GUY). The bar above shows that range on a scale from −1 to +1, with the solid line at the full result. The single country that moves r most: SUR (-0.054).

Within each region

Countries are not separate, unrelated cases, and neighbors share a lot. A link that holds inside each region is far more believable than one that shows up only when comparing regions.

	n	r
East Asia & Pacific	16	-0.78
Europe & Central Asia	24	-0.44
Latin America & Caribbean	24	-0.56
Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan	14	-0.77
Sub-Saharan Africa	40	-0.78

By income third

If the link shows up only in the richest third of countries, it is a feature of rich countries, not a general pattern.

	n	r
Poorest third	42	-0.81
Middle third	41	-0.75
Richest third	41	-0.51

By largest religious group

Countries grouped by a label they share, such as main religion, rather than by a number. Groups of fewer than twelve countries are not shown. These groups differ in income, region and history all at once. So a gap between them is a place to start asking questions, not an answer.

	n	r
Christians	72	-0.63
Muslims	38	-0.66

By last european coloniser

	n	r
France	22	-0.77
Never a European colony	18	-0.23
Spain	19	-0.82
United Kingdom	38	-0.73

Without outliers (countries far outside the middle half of countries on either measure, by more than one and a half times the width of that middle half): r = -0.711 after dropping 9 countries.

Two series, one country

Both measures over the years for one country you pick. The two charts are stacked so they share only the years along the bottom.

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Over time, within countries

Everything above compares countries with each other at one moment. This section compares each country only with itself over 0years. So a link here can’t come from anything about a country that stays the same, such as its history, geography, institutions or culture.

Not enough history inside each country to look at this over time. That needs countries measured for several years in a row, and at least one of these measures is measured too rarely.

The data

	% of women aged 20-24	years	Years
Niger NER	76.3%	17.2	2012, 2015
Central African Republic CAF	61%	17.3	2019, 2010
Chad TCD	60.6%	18.8	2019, 2015
Mali MLI	48.5%	18.8	2024, 2018
Mozambique MOZ	48.4%	18.7	2023, 2017
Bangladesh BGD	47.2%	18.8	2025, 2014
Guinea GIN	46.5%	19.8	2018, 2014
Ethiopia ETH	40.3%	21.3	2016
Malawi MWI	38.7%	20.4	2024, 2018
Burkina Faso BFA	38.2%	20	2021, 2017
Mauritania MRT	36.6%	21.8	2021, 2015
Suriname SUR	36%	29.3	2018, 2012
Nicaragua NIC	35.2%	21.1	2012
Nepal NPL	34.9%	20.1	2022, 2016
Sudan SDN	34.2%	21.9	2014

World Bank, World Development Indicators
World Bank Gender Statistics, from UN Population Division, World Marriage Data

Sources

Married by 18

Women who were first married by age 18 (% of women ages 20-24)

UNICEF · CC BY 4.0 · updated quarterly

From household surveys, mostly in lower-income countries, and only in years a survey ran. No year reaches sixty countries, so the latest value used is up to a decade old for some. Rich countries rarely report it at all, which shapes any link with income.

Women's age at first marriage (census-based)

Age at first marriage, female

World Bank · CC BY 4.0 · updated annual

The average age at which women first marry. It is worked out from census and survey counts of how many women in each age group have never married, by the UN Population Division (World Marriage Data), so it covers far more countries than registered marriages do. Most countries have a figure only every few years, and the series ends in 2019. No "better" direction is set.

How this was computed

Data used: most recent value in 2010-2025; values come from 2010–2025. To adjust for income, each measure is first predicted from GDP per person (in percentage terms, on a log scale) with a straight-line fit. Only what is left over is then compared. This is called a partial correlation. The line is drawn the standard way (ordinary least squares), which picks the line that comes closest to all the countries at once. The error margins allow for countries in the same region resembling each other, using 6 World Bank regions. The q-value corrects for testing all 14,952 pairs at once, using the Benjamini–Hochberg method. Underlying data last updated DYB 2024. How the country data works · explore Married by 18 and Women's age at first marriage (census-based)

This page shows that two measures go together. It does not show that Married by 18 changes Women's age at first marriage (census-based), or the reverse. These figures also describe countries, not individual people. See the ecological fallacy.