countries estimated loss in women’s earnings due to having married early to be 26 billion USD in 2015 (International Center for Research on Women, 2018).

Research has identified multiple drivers that interact to place a child at risk of child marriage. Generally, these drivers fall into three broad themes that are perceived to be relatively consistent across contexts: (1) _poverty_ , including child marriage to strengthen social ties for economic gain and access to markets/resources, (2) _cultural perceptions of safety and honor_ , including a belief that for girls it offers protection from sexual assault, premarital sex, and unintended pregnancy, and (3) _unequal gender norms_ that constrain opportunities of girls and women, including a tradition of early marriage for girls and marriage and family responsibilities as central to the lives of girls and women (Cherri, Cuesta, Rodriguez-Llanes, & Guha-Sapir, 2017; Lee-Rife, Malhotra, Warner, & Glinski, 2012; Psaki et al., 2021; Sieverding, Krafft, Berri, & Keo, 2020). In relation to poverty, educating and feeding girls who may leave and not contribute to the household may also be seen as a burden. When families struggle to provide for daughters and girls face limited opportunities for employment, child marriage can become a livelihood strategy (International Center for Research on Women, 2018; Lee-Rife, Malhotra, Warner, & Glinski, 2012; Nour, 2009).

Protective factors against child marriage include better educational attainment and employment opportunities for women and girls. These may not only reduce the likelihood of child marriage (Hunersen et al., 2021; Jain & Kurz, 2007; Paul, 2019; Wodon et al., 2017) but may be the most important factors in determining age at marriage generally (Jain & Kurz, 2007). Minimum marriage age laws have also been shown to contribute to the reduction in child marriage, although laws alone are not sufficient to deter from the harmful practice (Maswikwa, Richter, Kaufman, & Nandi, 2015). High levels of wealth and exposure to media have also been correlated with lower levels of child marriage (Plesons et al., 2021; Rumble, Peterman, Irdiana, Triyana, & Minnick, 2018).

Interventions to reduce child marriage highlight the importance of factors at the national, community, family, and individual levels (Psaki et al., 2021). At the community level, it is important to include interventions that address social norms. Lee-Rife et al. (2012) undertook a systematic review of 23 evaluated child marriage interventions in developing countries and found that engaging communities and empowering girls can be effective in delaying marriage. At the family and individual level, a number of studies have examined interventions that can address drivers of child marriage. A recent review of interventions identified programs that support girls’ schooling through cash or in-kind assistance as the most effective approach to reducing child marriage (Malhotra & Elnakib, 2021). Cash transfer programming has been shown to delay very early child marriage (girls aged 10-14) in Ethiopia (Erulkar, Medhin, & Weissman, 2017), reduce early marriage for Syrian refugee girls aged 15-19 years in Lebanon (Moussa et al., 2021), and agricultural seed support reduced child marriage in the Syrian Arab Republic (Baliki, Brück, & Stojetz, 2018).

In a systematic review of quantitative country studies by Neal et al. (2016), the direct effects of conflict on child marriage were found to be mixed. Specific studies sometimes show conflict leads to an increase (Randall, 2005; Shemyakina, 2013; Valente, 2011), a decrease (Blanc, 2004; Saxena, Kulczycki, & Jurdi, 2004), or has no clear impact on child marriage (Sieverding, Krafft, Berri, & Keo, 2020). The mixed results may be because economic, social and demographic changes wrought by conflict can further alter the drivers of child marriage in complex ways (Neal, Stone, & Ingham, 2016; Staveteig, 2011).

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