Page 59 - IJPS-11-4

International Journal of

Population Studies

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Associations between early marriage, women’s

empowerment, and infant mortality in Sub-
Saharan Africa

1,2
Sunday A. Adedini * , Sunday Matthew Abatan 1 ,
1
Kazeem Adebayo Sunmola 1,3 , Adesoji Dunsin Ogunsakin , and
Sarafa Babatunde Shittu 1
1 Department of Demography and Social Statistics, Faculty of Social Sciences, Federal University
Oye-Ekiti, Ekiti State, Nigeria
2 Programme in Demography and Population Studies, Schools of Public Health and Social Sciences,
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
3 Centre for Gender and Development Studies, Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State, Nigeria

Abstract
Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is characterized by high gender inequality and a high rate of

*Corresponding author: early marriages of girl children, which could have a negative influence on child health
Sunday A. Adedini outcomes and child mortality in the region. This study examined the influence of child
(sunday.adedini@fuoye.edu.ng) marriage on infant mortality in selected countries in SSA. We used Cox proportional
Citation: Adedini, S.A., Abatan, hazard models to analyze pooled data (N = 33,549 children) from the Demographic
S.M., Sunmola, K.A., Ogunsakin, and Health Surveys of 28 SSA countries. Our study established that children of child
A.D., & Shittu, S.B. (2025). brides faced heightened risks of infant mortality compared with children of women
Associations between early
marriage, women’s empowerment, who married after the age of 18, although this relationship became insignificant after
and infant mortality in Sub-Saharan controlling for women’s empowerment and other control variables. Therefore, the
Africa. International Journal of findings support the hypothesis that a certain extent of women’s empowerment
Population Studies, 11(4): 53-67.
https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.2411 could moderate the relationship between early marriage and infant mortality in
regions where early marriages occur due to the low socioeconomic status of women.
Received: December 12, 2023
We conclude that ensuring women empowerment and increasing their economic
1st revised: March 26, 2024 opportunities (such as involvement in the agriculture and formal employment
2nd revised: May 20, 2024 sectors) will lead to decreases in child marriage, thereby reducing infant mortality
in SSA.
3rd revised: June 12, 2024
Accepted: October 12, 2024
Keywords: Child marriage; Child mortality; Infant mortality; Women’s empowerment;
Published Online: November 13, Sub-Saharan Africa
2024
Copyright: © 2024 Author(s).
This is an Open-Access article
distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution 1. Introduction
License, permitting distribution,
and reproduction in any medium, Improving child health outcomes remains a key national and international priority. The
provided the original work is world seeks to reduce the under-5 mortality rate to 25 deaths per 1000 live births by
properly cited. 2030, as enshrined in the international agenda, for instance, target 3.2 of the Sustainable
Publisher’s Note: AccScience Development Goals. To a large extent, considerable progress has been achieved in
Publishing remains neutral with reducing global child mortality: 1 in 27 children died before the age of 5 in 2020 compared
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional with 1 in 11 in 1990 (UNICEF et al., 2020a). Notwithstanding this improvement, the
affiliations. global burden of child death remains high. Around 5 million children died before age 5

Volume 11 Issue 4 (2025) 53 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.2411