able to achieve your dream easily because the conditions here and the problems that have eliminated all our dreams in the recent period, the conditions of our country have changed dramatically.” A male youth from Madani who did not have a job said, “I will tell you why, because of the circumstances that we’re facing nowadays in addition to that, our parents force us in certain directions and the second thing is that everyone wants their children to follow their lead and work in the same field for example the doctor wants his son to be a doctor as well.” The last example partly addresses country-level reasons and partly addresses family or household reasons.

Many of the focus group participants, irrespective of their circumstances, said that their families played a leading role in determining their life courses. For example, a female youth from Khartoum who was not working said, “Sometimes the parents take the decision for you.” Another woman from Khartoum who was working said, “My father made me leave school, he told me now that you know how to write and read so you shouldn’t go to school anyway.” A male youth from Khartoum who did not have a job said, “Yes, the majority affected by the choice of their family.” At the same time, many of the decisions that families make with respect to their daughters and sons are gendered. While poverty was not reported to play a pronounced role in studies concerning early marriage and school dropout, families’ financial situations does appear to affect daughters’—and sons’—ability to study. For example, a male unemployed youth from Madani said, “I [know] a man who has five daughters at the beginning who made them learn, but after a while he brought them all out of education because of his financial circumstances.” A female working youth from Khartoum said, “Maybe because she sees her family suffering in paying the education expenses, so she feels it is better to stop education in order to help her family.” A male youth from Madani who had a job said, “I know a person who was the only man in the house and he had like five sisters, so he left school for financial reasons.” Another male youth from Madani who did not work said, “...I drop out my study because of substantial reasons because of my situation, I entered the university but I dropped [out] because the expenses to register were 1500. And this amount wasn’t available, I have elder sisters who go to the college and there are younger sisters who go to the school, so I drop out my study and I help my father so the rest of my sisters can continue their study.” The FGDs also revealed it was common for a combination of financial constraints and patriarchal customs to affect daughters’ ability to study as well as work outside the home after they were married. As mentioned in preceding sections of this report, poor families with large numbers of unmarried daughters will often choose to discontinue their daughters’ educations so that they can get married, since marriage transfers the economic responsibility for the daughters to their husbands’ families while also generating some wealth for the daughters’ families in the form of ‘bride price’ and other gifts from the husband (Papps et al. 1983). A female youth from Madani who was not working said, “Girls stop their education depending on their families’ decisions, but it is different for boys. If boys want to continue their education, no one will influence them.” This comment was followed by a direct comment from another female youth from Madani who was not working either: “For girls, it is their family’s decision.” Once married, it can be difficult for women to join the labor force. A woman from Khartoum who was not working said, “For me I left school, to work to help my family, then I got married and left the work.” A female working youth from Khartoum said, “I stopped my studies because of its expenses, and then I got married and I didn’t have the chance to return back and complete my studies.” 46