Age at First Marriage in India - Levels, Trends, and Determinants

Age at first marriage has been considered as a leading factor for public policy because of its impact on fertility and population growth. It is well known that population growth depends primarily on two factors, fertility and mortality, and fertility depends considerably on the age at which men and women marry.Therefore the study of age at first marriage in any population is of immense important due to its strong association with social, economic and demographic change in population. Thus, by utilizing all the three round of National Family Health Survey(NFHS) data,the present study attempts to capture the levels,trends and determinants of age at first marriage in India and also tries to study the age at first marriage among men. Results shows that from NFHS-1 to NFHS-3, the proportion of ever married males age 10-29 has decreased from 27 percent to 21 percent and among females it has decreased from 52 percent to 22 percent.The proportion of ever married population in young age group in states Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan is quite large. Among the progressive birth cohorts, rate of increase in age at first marriage is low than the progressive marriage cohort.