Impact of tropical cyclones on child marriage rates in 14 affected countries

Tropical cyclones (TCs) have had reported impacts on child marriage within certain communities, driven by disrupted livelihoods, displacement, and interruptions to education. However, the extent to which TCs affect national rates of child marriage has not been systematically studied. Here, we combine 12 888 607 person-years of nationally representative survey data on child marriage with high-resolution gridded wind speed data to estimate the effect of TCs on child marriage rates in 14 cyclone-exposed countries between 1983 and 2015. Using a distributed lag model, we estimate changes in child marriage rates up to three years following a cyclone. We find little measurable change in national child marriage rates after cyclones. We observe a small increase in the rate of child marriage in Mozambique, and subgroup analyses suggest that child marriage may have increased slightly among urban populations in Cambodia and Timor-Leste. Overall, these results indicate that, despite reported impacts, TCs are unlikely to be a dominant driver of child marriage rates globally.