Child marriage is being increasingly recognized globally as a fundamental violation of human rights. Child marriages occur globally in varying degrees across countries and regions. South Asia alone accounted for almost half of the total number of child marriages that have occurred globally.

This is the first policy brief produced by the Young Marriage and Parenthood Study (YMAPS), looking at research findings from Young Lives (Ethiopia, Peru, Vietnam and the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana) and Child Frontiers (Zambia).

This report summarizes 2015 state-level findings from a large-scale study of six Indian states titled Unintended Pregnancy and Abortion in India (UPAI).

The 2011 Census in India reported that nearly 17 million children between the ages of 10 and 19 –6% of the age group – are married, with girls constituting the majority (76 per cent), although there has been a significant relative reduction in the marriage of girls under 14.

This paper uses a unique dataset from Andhra Pradesh, tracking a cohort of children who were born in 1994–95 from the ages of 8 to 19 years, to ask three key questions about teenage marriage and fertility in India. First, what predicts getting married during the teen years?

The Government of India has made combatting child marriage and early childbearing a priority. This brief uses data collected from 1,000 19-year-olds in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana to help inform policy and programming efforts.