EARLY MARRIAGE AND WOMEN EMPOWERMENT: A STUDY IN URBAN SLUMS OF KHULNA CITY

Abstract

This paper is a sincere effort to find out the effect of early marriage on women empowerment in the slums of Khulna City of Bangladesh. It was al so an attempt to estimate the impact of other socio-economic and demographic variables related to early marriage (for example: employment status, educational attainment, age at marriage, household income, family size etc.) on women empowerment. A total of 120 respondents were selected by using quota sampling from two slum areas named Rupsha Char slum and 5 No. Ghat slum of Khulna City. Two groups were considered to be compared for measuring the effect of early marriage on women empowerment. One group represents those women who have become victims of early marriage (women married before age of 18 years) and another one represents those women who have been married at appropriate age (women married after age of 18 years). A Cumulative Empowerment Index (CEI) was constructed to determine the level of women empowerment. Then a multiple linear regression model was used to estimate the impact of early marriage on women empowerment. The study found that the women, who are married at an early age are significantly less empowered than those of the other women, who married at appropriate age. The statistical evidence shows that age at marriage and household income has significant positive impact on women empowerment. Moreover, the findings also show that on an average, empowerment level increases when women become employed. Therefore, based on the statistical and empirical evidence it can be concluded that age at marriage has very significant positive influence on women empowerment and early marriage can be proved to be one of the major obstacles in the way of women empowerment in urban slums of Khulna city.